THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
nY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIBJU 
UUOLLA,  CALIFORNIA 


RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY 


RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY 

AND    THE    RELIGION    OF    THE    SPIRIT 


BY 


AUGUSTE    SABATIER 

Late  Dean  of  the  Protestant  Faculty  of  Theology  in  the 
University  of  Paris 


TRANSLATED  BY  LOUISE  SEYMOUR  HOUGHTON 


NEW    YORK 
McCLURE,    PHILLIPS 
MCMIV 


CO. 


Copyright,  1904,  ty 


McCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &  CO. 


• 


r\ 

i? 


Published,  February,  1904,  N 

•* 


UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

SAN  DIEGO 


NOTE 

IT  is  with  a  sense  of  obeying  the  will  of  him  who  is  no  more  that  we 
publish  this  work.  The  task  is  at  once  very  grateful,  because  it  seems 
to  us  like  giving  a  sort  of  survivorship  to  his  thought,  and  very  sorrow- 
ful, from  the  bitterness  of  our  consciousness  that  he  is  no  longer  here 
to  perfect  his  own  work,  and  to  present  it  himself  to  the  public  in  the 
concise  and  literary  form  which  he  would  have  given  to  it. 

On  December  2,  1900,  my  husband  joyfully  called  me  to  him,  saying, 
"  I  have  put  the  last  period  to  my  book."  And  while  I  was  congratu- 
lating him,  he  added:  "  Now  I  shall  let  it  rest  during  our  journey  to 
Egypt  and  Palestine.  It  will  take  me  three  months  to  revise  it  on  our 
return,  but  I  shall  not  modify  its  form,  for  I  have  said  that  which 
I  desire  to  say.  If  accident  befalls  me  during  the  journey  remember 
this:  my  book  must  come  out  whatever  happens.  There  it  lies,"  he 
continued,  turning  to  his  desk ;  "  you  will  give  it  to  Menegoz  and  Rob- 
erty,  who  will  both  willingly  revise  it;  but  it  must  appear!"  He 
repeated  the  words  with  emphasis,  separating  each  syllable  to  show  that 
this  was  his  well-considered  determination. 

Although  he  had  long  been  out  of  health,  he  had  no  idea  that  his 
disease  would  progress  so  rapidly,  and  when  I  spoke  to  him  of  rest  he 
would  say :  "  I  have  work  planned  out  for  two  hundred  years,"  or 
else,  "  I  hope  to  die  in  my  professorial  chair."  This  hope  was  almost 
fulfilled,  for  on  the  6th  of  February  my  husband  gave  a  lecture,  and 
returned  home,  literally  staggering,  to  take  to  his  bed. 

It  was  an  immense  disappointment  to  him  to  give  up  the  journey 
to  Palestine,  for  which,  on  the  very  evening  before,  he  had  been  making 
preparations.  He  had  long  dreamed  of  the  journey  as  the  crown  of 
all  his  toil. 

v 


vi  NOTE 

On  December  80,  1900,  we  were  alone  together  in  the  country.  I 
took  an  atlas,  and  while  he,  shivering  over  the  fire,  with  closed  eyes, 
described  the  hoped-for  journey,  I,  wondering,  followed  on  the  map 
the  outlines  of  the  Lake  of  Tiberias,  the  picturesque  features  of  the 
country,  which  he  described  as  if  he  had  seen  them.  He  was  listening 
to  the  words  of  Christ,  looking  upon  the  places  where  they  had  been 
spoken,  describing  to  me  the  prospect  which  Jesus  had  before  his  eyes 
as  he  spoke.  It  was  a  never-to-be-forgotten  evening. 

During  the  twenty-five  years  that  I  had  the  privilege  of  sharing  his 
life  I  never  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  prodigious  powers  which  enabled 
him  to  accomplish  a  truly  superhuman  task.  He  worked  incessantly  and 
everywhere,  undisturbed  by  noises,  conversations,  the  children's  plays, 
music,  bursts  of  laughter :  nothing  interrupted  or  confused  his  thought. 
The  activity  of  his  brain  was  so  intense  that  it  drew  heavily  upon  his 
physical  strength.  Worn  out  by  his  labours,  he  'gently  breathed  away 
his  life  on  April  12,  while  praying,  "  Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven." 

It  is  impossible  to  give  adequate  recognition  to  the  zeal  of  those 
friends  who  have  kindly  revised  this  volume,  with  all  its  references: 
M.  Menegoz,  the  chosen  partner  of  his  theological  thought,  his  brother- 
in-arms ;  MM.  J.  Emile  Roberty,  Jean  Reville,  Adolphe  Lods,  who  had 
been  more  or  less  his  pupils,  and  who,  having  become  his  colleagues,  were 
bound  to  him  with  unalterable  affection.  With  pious  respect  they  have 
hardly  touched  the  form  of  this  work,  preferring  to  leave  some  repeti- 
tions rather  than  risk  weakening  the  thought,  and  not  daring  to  under- 
take the  work  of  condensation  which  its  author  would  have  performed. 
When  he  had  written  out  all  his  thought  he  was  never  weary  of  cutting 
down,  pruning,  seeking  for  greater  clearness  and  conciseness. 

Thanks,  therefore,  to  all  you,  his  true  and  faithful  friends.  Though 
the  book  lacks  its  last  fine  touch,  at  least  those  who  know  how  such  labour 
is  done  will  see  with  what  a  sure  hand  the  master  craftsman  blocked 
out  his  work,  how  firm  was  his  design  and  how  definite  his  thought,  from 
the  first  sketch.  FRANKLINE  SABATIEB. 


PREFACE 

THIS  volume  forms  a  sequel  to  the  work  which  the  author  published  in 
1897,  under  the  title,  "  Outlines  of  a  Philosophy  of  Religion  based  upon 
Psychology  and  History." 

Two  systems  of  theology  still  confront  one  another:  the  theology 
of  authority  and  the  theology  of  experience.  They  are  characterised 
by  methods  radically  opposed  in  the  scientific  development  of  religious 
ideas  and  Christian  dogmas.  To  the  solution  of  the  question  of  method 
the  present  work  is  consecrated.  At  the  present  hour  one  method  is 
dying  and  destined  soon  to  disappear ;  the  other  is  taking  on  ever  more 
vigorous  development,  and  is  destined  to  triumph. 

The  problem  here  discussed  belongs  not  simply  to  the  order  of  philos- 
ophy. It  reacts  strongly  upon  the  social  order.  In  fact,  the  relations 
between  civil  and  religious  society,  between  Church  and  State,  necessarily 
differ  in  character  according  as  religion  is  conceived  of  as  an  inner 
inspiration  upspringing  in  human  consciences  that  have  been  tilled  and 
sown  by  the  divine  Spirit,  or  as  a  supernatural  institution  charged  by  a 
higher  and  external  authority  with  the  education,  training,  and  gov- 
ernment of  human  spirits.  In  the  first  case  religion  becomes  inherent 
in  civil  society  itself,  as  it  is  in  the  human  conscience;  it  acts  beneath 
the  surface,  like  the  hidden  sap  that  awakens  the  winter-bound  tree  to 
the  new  life  of  spring,  yet  neither  suppresses  nor  does  violence  to  its 
legitimate  development.  In  the  second,  on  the  contrary,  religion  claims 
external  authority  as  a  divine  law  to  which  all  human  laws  must  yield, 
as  an  extra-human  truth  which  the  intelligence  must  receive  with  docility, 
as  a  tutelage,  in  fact,  to  which  man  must  submit.  Hence  inevitably  arise 
those  irremediable  conflicts,  less  violent  among  Protestant  nations, 

TU 


viii  PREFACE 

because  the  authority  of  Protestant  dogma  is  always  relative,  more  pro- 
found and  acute  among  Catholic  peoples,  by  reason  of  their  moral  cus- 
toms, and  their  concordats,  which  latter,  it  is  true,  may  moderate  the 
violence  of  these  conflicts,  but  leave  untouched  the  fatal  root  of  all  the 
evil. 

In  France,  especially,  the  religious  question  underlies  all  political 
agitation.  The  strange  alternation  of  movements  of  revolt  and  of 
reaction,  between  which  the  country  oscillates,  is  both  consequence  and 
symptom  of  a  fundamental  religious  problem  existing  in  its  political 
life,  ever  ill  stated  and  ever  wrongly  solved. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  not  in  the  least  degree  from  a  political  point  of 
view  that  the  question  is  treated  in  these  pages.  Such  problems  demand 
to  be  persistently  studied  and  meditated  by  themselves  and  for  them- 
selves alone,  without  prepossession  either  of  dislike  or  favour,  in  the  sole 
interest  of  truth.  This  book  is  in  no  sense  a  work  of  polemics.  Whether 
discussing  the  Catholic  or  the  Protestant  dogma  of  authority,  our  inten- 
tion has  not  been  to  refute  either,  but  before  all  things  to  give  a  historic 
explanation  of  their  formation  and  their  destiny.  Every  system  has  its 
immanent  logic  which  impels  it  toward  its  point  of  perfection,  and  thus 
revealing  its  internal  inconsistencies  or  insufficiencies,  impels  it  no  less 
irresistibly  to  dissolution  and  ruin.  The  history  of  a  dogma  is  its 
inevitable  criticism.  Revealing  the  laborious  method  of  its  formation, 
it  explains  its  origin ;  pointing  out  the  elements  which  have  entered  into 
its  composition,  it  defines  its  nature;  and  finally,  making  manifest  the 
changes  which,  from  epoch  to  epoch,  have  taken  place  in  general  ideas, 
the  new  configuration  of  the  historic  soil  upon  which  these  construc- 
tions of  the  past  repose,  it  lays  bare  their  foundations,  and  by  that  very 
act  reveals  their  transient  and  contingent  character.  In  this  sense 
Schiller's  saying  is  true :  Die  Weltgeachichte  ist  das  Weltgericht. 

In  an  argument  against  the  systems  and  method  of  authority  we 
have  not  wished  to  impose  upon  the  reader  the  necessity  of  believing 
us  upon  our  own  word.  We  have  supported  each  important  affirmation 


PREFACE  ix 

by  authentic  citations.     This  part  of  our  work  is  that  which  has  cost  us 
the  most  labour. 

This  volume  is  especially  offered  to  students,  to  those  who  read  not 
for  mere  amusement,  but  for  instruction's  sake,  and  who  seek  in  these 
matters  to  reach  a  reasonable,  sound,  and  accurate  conviction.  Such 
will  here  find  bibliographical  directions  which  may  aid  them  in  their 
own  researches.  The  list  of  citations  is  far  from  complete;  it  was 
necessary  to  be  content  with  those  that  are  essential.1 

More  than  ever  we  are  convinced  that  psychology  and  history  are 
the  two  nursing  mothers  of  religious  philosophy.  Our  former  volume 
was  simply  a  work  of  psychology  and  history,  and  nothing  else  will  be 
found  here. 

PARIS,  August  14,  1899. 

1  Appendix  I. 


CONTENTS 

Preface  by   Madame   Sabatier 


INTRODUCTION 

THE    PROBLEM 

I.    The   Conflict   of   Methods XT 

II.    Authority   and    Autonomy xviii 

III.    Of  Authority  in  Matters  of  Religion xxviii 

BOOK  I 

THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  DOGMA  OF  AUTHORITY 
CHAPTER     I 

DEFINITION    OF  THE    DOGMA 

I.    The    Formula    of    the    Dogma 8 

II.    The  Meaning  of  the  Dogma 8 

III.    The  Root  of  the  Dogma  and  Its  Constituent  Elements        ....      19 

CHAPTER    II 

THE    CHURCH 

I.  The  Catholic  Notion  of  the  Church        .........  16 

II.  The  Messianic  Kingdom  and  the  Church 21 

III.  The  Greco- Roman  Basis  of  the  Catholic  Church 27 

IV.  The  Church  and  Heresies         .        .  32 

CHAPTER  III 

TRADITION 

I.  Historic  and  Supernatural  View .        .39 

II.  The  Authority  of  Tradition  in  Judaism 42 

III.  The  Earliest  Christian  Tradition 44 

IV.  The  Baptismal  Formula  and  the  Apostolic  Symbol 51 

V.  The  Genesis  of  the  Catholic  Theory  of  Tradition 55 

VI.    Development  of  the  Catholic  Theory 61 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    IV 

THE    EPISCOPATE 

I.    The  Episcopate  and  Tradition 68 

II.     History  of  the  First  Christian  Community  of  Corinth        ....  70 

III.  Progressive  Development  of  the   Episcopate 75 

IV.  The    Priesthood 83 

V.    Apostolic  Succession .90 

VI.    The  Theory  of  Cyprian— Cathedra  Petri 98 


CHAPTER  V 

THE     PAPACY 

I.     The  Formative  Law  of  the  Catholic  Hierarchy 101 

II.     The  Share  of  Rome  in  the  Origin  of  the  Papacy 105 

III.  The  Legend  of  St.  Peter's  Chair 112 

IV.  First  Age  of  the  Papacy — Grandeur  and  Decadence 120 

V.    The  Infallible  Pope .        .129 

VI.    The  Future  of  the  Papacy 136 


BOOK  II 

THE  PROTESTANT  DOGMA   OF  AUTHORITY 
CHAPTER  I 

PRIMITIVE  PROTESTANTISM 

I.  The  Reformation  and  Humanism 145 

II.  Originality  of  the  Reformation  Principle 150 

III.  The  Bible  and  the  Reformers 155 

IV.  The    Inward  Witness  of  the   Holy  Spirit;    or,  The   Subjective   Basis   of 

Protestantism 160 

CHAPTER  II 

THE    INFALLIBILITY    OF    THE    BIBLE 

I.  Origin  of  the  Idea  of  Inspiration 165 

II.  Belief  in  Inspiration  in  the  Christian  Church 167 

III.  The  Principle  of  the  Dogma 174 

IV.  The  Construction  of  the  Dogma 175 

V.  Comparison  of  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  Dogmas  of  Authority        .        .  183 


CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER    III 

THE   PROGRESSIVE   DISSOLUTION   OF   THE   DOGMA 

I.    The  Basis  of  the  Dogma  Displaced 188 

II.    The  Progress  of  Biblical  Criticism 191 

III.  Concessions  and  Compromises — The  Triumphs  of  Rationalism    .        .        .  197 

IV.  Latent  Germs  and  New  Methods 202 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE    AUTHORITY    OF   THE    BIBLE    IN  THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

I.     Revival    and    Reaction 212 

II.    The  Final  Crisis 218 

III.     The  Last  Bulwark  of  the  System  of  Authority 229 

CHAPTER  V 

WHAT  IS  THE    BIBLE? 

I.    The  Two  Elements  of  the  Answer        .        . 235 

II.    The  Historic  Notion  of  the  Bible 235 

III.  The  Religious  Notion  of  the  Bible 240 

IV.  The  Attempt  at  Synthesis 244 

V.    Conclusion                                                                   250 


BOOK  III 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 
CHAPTER  I 

FROM  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  TO  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Preliminary  Dialogue 255 

I.    Authority  and  Religion     ...........  255 

II.     Historic  Testimony  and  Criticism 263 

III.    Why  has  the  Christian  Religion  Hitherto  Taken  on  Authoritative  Forms?  278 

CHAPTER  II 

JESUS  CHRIST  THE  FOUNDER  OF  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

I.  The  Teaching  of  Jesus,  Its  Form 283 

II.  Jesus  and  the  Old  Testament 288 

III.  The  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  Its  Authority 292 

IV.  The  Nature  of  the  Gospel 295 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  III 

THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   THE    CHARTER   OF  THE   RELIGION   OF  THE    SPIRIT 

I.    The  Fulfilment  of  the  Messianic  Promise 301 

II.    The  Paulinian  Notion  of  Inspiration 305 

III.  The  Johannean  Doctrine  of  Inspiration 309 

IV.  The  Idea  of  the  Universal  Priesthood 312 

V.    The  Tradition  of  the  Religion  of  the  Spirit 313 

CHAPTER  IV 

CONTENT   OF   THE   RELIGION   OF   THE   SPIRIT 

I.    The  Antinomy   Resolved  .        . 319 

II.    The  Gospel  of  Salvation 323 

III.  The  Gospel  of  Salvation  and  the  Person  of  Christ 329 

IV.  Faith,  Belief,  and  Theology 335 

CHAPTER  V 

SCIENTIFIC    THEOLOGY,    ITS    MATTER    AND    METHOD 

I.    The  Spirit  of  Piety  and  the  Scientific  Spirit 342 

II.    Conditions  on  which  Theology  May  Become  Scientific        .        .        .        .  345 

III.  The  Degree  of  Objectivity  in  Religious  and  Christian  Experience        .        .  349 

IV.  Religion  and  Theology 350 

V.    The  Matter,  Function,  and  Method  of  Theology    ......  359 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE    ORGANISATION    OF    CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE 

I.     Unity;   Its   Organising  Principle .        .  362 

II.    Analysis  of  the  Christian  Consciousness 366 

III.  The  Three  Degrees  of  Religious  Evolution 369 

IV.  Construction  of  the  System 375 


INTRODUCTION 
THE  PROBLEM 

I 

The  Conflict  of  Methods 

To  the  thinking  man  a  discord  between  methods  is  a  graver  matter  than 
an  opposition  between  doctrines.  The  antagonism  which  has  arisen 
between  traditional  theology  and  the  kindred  group  of  all  other  modern 
disciplines  is  of  this  kind. 

In  the  former  the  method  of  authority  still  reigns.1  The  latter 
depend  only  upon  experience.  It  follows  that  between  the  two  there 
can  be  no  bond  nor  any  common  standard. 

It  is  the  property  of  the  method  of  authority  to  base  all  judgment 
of  doctrine  upon  the  exterior  marks  of  its  origin  and  the  trustworthiness 
of  those  who  promulgated  it.  In  religion  this  method  appeals  to 
miracles,  which  accredit  God's  messengers  to  men,  and  stamp  their  words 
or  writings  with  the  divine  imprint. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  modern  experimental  method  puts  us  in  imme- 
diate contact  with  reality,  and  teaches  us  to  judge  of  a  doctrine  only 
according  to  its  intrinsic  value,  directly  manifested  to  the  mind  in  the 
degree  of  its  evidence.  The  two  methods  are  so  radically  opposed  that 
to  accept  the  latter  is  at  once  to  mark  the  former  as  insufficient  and 
outworn. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  advocates  of  the  former,  to  make 
it  the  more  acceptable,  reduce  it  to  the  necessary  and  legitimate  use  of 
testimony  admitted  in  matters  of  history.  It  is  easy  to  show  the  con- 
fusion which  must  follow.  Historical  testimony,  derived  from  men  who 

i  Appendix  II. 
xv 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

are  recognised  as  fallible  and  limited,  is  always  received  subject  to  cau- 
tion, and  the  truth  which  the  historian  draws  therefrom  is  simply  the 
result  of  the  comparisons  which  he  institutes  between  various  testimonies, 
and  the  verification  to  which  he  submits  them.  Thus  the  foundation 
of  historic  certainty  is  still  evidence  verified  by  rational  criticism.  Quite 
otherwise  is  the  method  of  authority.  The  testimony  upon  which  the 
argument  is  based  is  the  testimony  of  God.  The  point  of  departure 
is  the  axiom  that  it  is  reasonable  and  just  that  human  reason  should 
subordinate  itself  to  the  divine  reason,  should  indeed  be  silent  and  humble 
before  it.  All  reasoning  of  this  kind  avowedly  or  tacitly  implies  on 
the  part  of  the  thinking  subject  a  declaration  of  incompetence,  and  as 
a  consequence  a  conscious  or  unconscious  act  of  abdication. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  method  of  authority,  lording  it  over  the 
human  mind,  dominated  in  all  sciences.  A  proposition  of  Aristotle,  an 
utterance  of  Scripture,  a  dictum  of  the  Fathers,  a  decision  of  a  council, 
settled  officially,  and  for  most  men  quite  as  fitly,  a  problem  of  physics, 
astronomy,  or  history  as  a  problem  of  morals  or  philosophy. 

One  stands  astounded  on  ascertaining  how  great  was  the  authority 
of  the  ancients  in  the  schools  up  to  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Yet  this  infantile  method  was  vanquished  on  the  day  when  Galileo  and 
Bacon  opposed  to  it  in  the  realm  of  physics  the  method  of  observation 
and  experiment,  and  when  Descartes,  in  philosophy,  subjecting  all  tradi- 
tional ideas  to  a  provisional  doubt,  resolved  to  accept  as  true  only  those 
which  appeared  to  him  to  be  evidently  such.  It  was  an  intellectual 
revolution  of  incalculable  importance,  which  put  an  end  to  the  long 
minority  of  the  human  mind  by  asserting  its  autonomy. 

To  say  that  the  mind  is  autonomous  is  not  to  hold  that  it  is  not  sub- 
ject to  law;  it  is  to  say  that  it  finds  the  supreme  norm  of  its  ideas  and 
acts  not  outside  of  itself,  but  within  itself,  in  its  very  constitution.  It 
is  to  say  that  the  consent  of  the  mind  to  itself  is  the  prime  condition 
and  foundation  of  all  certitude.  This  principle  explains  the  character, 
the  independence,  and  the  marvellous  expansion  of  modern  culture  during 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

the  past  three  hundred  years.  If  theology  persists  in  subjecting  itself 
to  an  ancient  method  from  which  all  other  disciplines  have  freed  them- 
selves, it  will  not  only  find  itself  in  sterile  isolation,  but  it  will  expose 
itself  to  the  irrefutable  denials  and  unchallengeable  judgments  of  a 
reason  always  more  and  more  independent  and  certain  of  itself. 

Without  doubt,  if  religion  could  remain  in  the  realm  of  pure  senti- 
ment, it  would  be  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  science;  but  religion  ex- 
presses and  realises  itself  in  doctrines  and  institutions  which  cannot  be 
exempted  from  criticism.  These  doctrines,  which  bear  upon  their  face 
the  indelible  date  of  their  birth,  implicate  as  to  the  constitution  of  the 
universe,  the  history  of  the  early  ages  of  humanity,  the  origin  and 
nature  of  the  writings  in  the  canonical  Scriptures,  certain  notions  bor- 
rowed from  the  philosophy  and  general  science  of  a  bygone  period  of 
human  history.  To  force  them  upon  the  philosophy  and  science  of 
to-day  and  to-morrow  is  not  merely  to  commit  an  anachronism;  it  is 
to  enter  upon  a  desperate  conflict  in  which  the  authority  of  the  past 
is  defeated  in  advance. 

This  is  why  traditional  theology  appears  to  be  always  in  distress; 
one  by  one  she  abandons  her  ancient  positions,  having  been  unable  to 
find  security  or  a  basis  of  defence  in  any  of  them.  Let  astronomy  tell 
the  story  of  the  heavens,  or  geology  that  of  the  earth ;  let  Egypt,  India, 
or  Assyria  reveal  its  past;  let  historical  criticism  study  the  texts  and 
monuments  of  antiquity ;  let  Darwin  and  his  successors  relate  the  evolu- 
tion of  creatures  and  the  history  of  life  upon  our  globe,  and  some  sec- 
tion of  the  sacred  walls  is  inevitably  undermined,  and  the  entire  edifice 
of  ancient  beliefs  seems  shaken  to  its  foundations. 

It  may  perhaps  be  said :  Granted  that  with  the  method  of  authority 
theology  cannot  maintain  its  dignity  as  a  true  science ;  is  it  yet  certain 
that  it  can  survive  without  this  method? 

Thus,  in  the  eyes  of  the  majority,  the  problem  of  authority  becomes 
a  question  of  life  or  death  for  theology,  and  even  for  religion.  To  fore- 
stall a  hasty  conclusion,  let  us  first  of  all  point  out  to  troubled  minds 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

that  a  change  of  method  does  not  necessarily  entail  the  destruction  of 
a  science.  The  latter  can  disappear  only  if  the  object  of  its  study 
vanishes.  Now  the  religious  phenomenon  is  the  permanent  object  of 
theology.  So  long  as  the  religious  phenomenon  of  Christianity  is 
repeated,  so  long  it  will  continue  to  be  necessary  to  study  it,  to  deter- 
mine its  conditions,  its  nature,  cause,  and  significance.  The  experi- 
mental method  destroyed  the  astrology  and  physics  of  ancient  days, 
but  it  created  a  new  physics  and  a  new  astronomy.  Why  should  not 
the  same  method,  adopted  by  theology,  have  the  same  fecundating 
and  rejuvenating  effect?  And  if  this  transformation  is  not  logically 
impossible,  why  should  it  not  be  justified  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christian 
conscience  as  well  as  in  those  of  history  and  philosophy?  To  this  ques- 
tion the  studies  collected  in  this  volume  are  meant  to  reply;  and  for 
this  radical  revolution  it  is  their  purpose  to  prepare. 

II 

'Authority  and  Autonomy 

THE  conflict  of  methods  ends  in  the  antinomy  between  the  authority  of 
tradition  and  the  autonomy  of  the  mind.  These  are  two  historic  and 
social  puissances,  which,  though  often  opposed  one  to  another,  are  none 
the  less  allied  and  correlative.  In  the  moral  progress  of  humanity,  and 
in  the  acquisition  of  learning,  it  may  be  said  that  they  play  equal  and 
equally  necessary  parts.  It  is  important,  then,  before  going  farther, 
to  take  account  of  their  relations. 

These  relations  at  once  lead  back  to  those  of  the  individual  with 
his  species.  Authority  is  the  right  of  the  species  over  the  individual, 
autonomy  is  the  right  of  the  individual  with  regard  to  the  species. 

In  metaphysics  there  is  no  problem  more  important  than  that  of 
the  relation  of  the  particular  to  the  general,  of  the  individual  being 
to  the  universal  being.  The  question,  at  bottom,  is  to  know  whether 
the  spirit  shall  be  subordinated  to  the  creature  or  the  creature  to  the 


INTRODUCTION 

spirit ;  whether  in  the  phenomenon  of  consciousness,  which  is  necessarily 
individual,  we  are  to  see  an  accident  without  meaning  or  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  true  being.  In  the  former  case  all  individuality,  mere 
ephemeral  efflorescence,  is  engulfed  in  a  materialistic  pantheism;  it  has 
just  the  degree  of  reality,  and  the  destiny,  of  the  wave  that  ceaselessly 
swells  and  falls  back  upon  the  face  of  the  rayless  ocean.  In  the  other 
case,  individualisation,  that  is,  the  persistent  production  of  more  dis- 
tinctly marked  individualities,  ever  more  stable  and  more  clearly  con- 
scient,  becomes  the  very  law  of  universal  evolution.  Consciousness  ap- 
pears as  the  final  cause,  and  hence  as  the  profound  reason  of  things,  and 
where  it  takes  on  a  moral  character  it  is  crowned  in  the  eyes  of  the 
whole  universe  with  an  inviolable  and  sacred  majesty. 

Yet  this  is  only  half  the  truth.  While  tending  to  individuality  the 
world  tends  neither  to  anarchy  nor  to  disorder.  Individuality  does  not 
exhaust  the  phenomenon  of  consciousness.  In  every  consciousness  there 
is  a  new  principle  of  unification,  the  germ  of  an  order  grander  and 
more  beautiful  than  the  material  order  which  is  maintained  by  physical 
laws.  Side  by  side  with  individual  energies,  which  doubtless  cause  divi- 
sion and  separation,  is  there  not  in  the  intelligence  itself  an  element  of 
generalising  reason,  and  in  the  heart  a  principle  of  sympathy,  a  law 
of  fraternal  love,  bringing  individual  wills  into  concord  and  unity? 
Solidarity,  which  in  nature  is  a  ruthless  fact,  becomes  in  the  realm  of 
the  spirit  a  moral  ideal,  a  holy  obligation.  Should  it  not  be  the  task 
of  humanity  as  it  emerges  from  nature,  and  rises  into  the  life  of  the 
spirit,  to  realise  and  to  make  apparent  above  the  physical  universe  that 
moral  universe  which  reproduces  all  its  riches,  and  all  its  harmony  in  a 
higher  plane,  and  with  an  ineffable  glory? 

For  it  is  a  fact  that  the  moral  consciousness  does  not  appear  at  the 
beginning  of  evolution,  nor  does  it  at  any  moment  burst  suddenly  into 
being  all  luminous  and  perfect.  It  emerges  slowly  and  laboriously  from 
the  night  of  nature.  It  cannot  establish  itself  without  subordinating 
physical  laws  to  its  own  laws,  hence  contradictions  and  repeated  con- 


xx  INTRODUCTION 

flicts.  Thus  there  is  always  a  double  relation  between  nature  and  the 
spirit;  nature  remains  for  the  moral  consciousness  a  necessary  support 
which  it  has  no  right  to  despise,  and  at  the  same  time  an  obstacle  which 
it  ought  to  overcome,  and  a  limit  which  it  must  overpass.  In  a  positive 
sense,  nature  prepares  for  the  advent  of  the  spirit ;  this  is  its  reason  for 
being.  In  a  negative  sense,  the  spirit  can  triumph  only  in  raising  itself 
above  nature.  Let  us  here  descend  from  metaphysics  to  history.  In 
the  light  of  these  principles  the  relations  between  the  species  and  the 
individual  will  be  easily  defined. 

Every  individual  life  is  from  the  beginning  determined  by  the  col- 
lective life  from  which  it  emanates.  Man  is  not  born  adult  or  inde- 
pendent. Little  by  little  he  differentiates  himself  from  the  species,  as 
the  child  emerges  from  the  matrix  in  which  it  was  formed.  If  none 
should  live  for  himself,  it  is  because  none  exists  by  himself. 

I  belong  to  my  race,  to  my  family,  by  my  organism.  The  fact  of 
my  birth  has  determined  in  advance  the  conditions  of  my  life  and  the 
outlines  of  my  destiny ;  it  has  made  me  a  white  man  and  not  a  negro,  a 
European,  a  Frenchman  of  the  nineteenth  century,  instead  of  a  savage 
and  a  barbarian.  Upon  my  nurture  depend  not  only  my  health  and  my 
race  instincts,  but  also  my  intellectual  faculties  and  my  moral  inclina- 
tions; from  society,  in  the  bosom  of  which  I  grow  up,  I  receive  my 
education  and  all  my  ancestral  heritage.  In  fact,  my  being  is  like  a 
body  immersed  in  an  encompassing  and  penetrating  fluid. 

Heredity,  which  imposes  upon  me  the  irresistible  bias  of  ancestral 
life ;  political  order,  which  shuts  me  up  in  its  decrees ;  custom,  which  in 
time  becomes  second  nature;  historic  tradition  and  testimony  of  my 
fellows,  which  extend  my  life  in  time  and  space  and  enlarge  my  per- 
sonal experience  to  embrace  the  total  experience  of  humanity — who  shall 
show  the  limits  of  the  empire  which  species  exercises  over  the  formation 
of  the  individual,  and  over  the  course  of  his  destinies? 

All  these  influences  are  concentrated  and  made  active  by  relations 
which  they  are  continually  creating  and  developing.  Authority  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

family,  authority  of  the  school,  authority  of  the  tribe,  of  the  city  and 
the  Church;  these  are  conservative  and  educating  potencies,  without 
which  the  progress  of  civilisation  and  moral  culture  were  not  even  con- 
ceivable. 

Authority,  then,  has  its  roots  in  the  organic  conditions  of  the  life 
of  the  species,  and  its  end  in  the  formation  of  the  individual.  This 
essentially  pedagogical  mission  at  once  justifies  and  limits  it.  Like 
every  good  teacher,  authority  should  labour  to  render  itself  useless. 

What  does  the  man  become  under  this  tutelage?  From  his  parents 
and  masters  the  child  receives  his  language,  his  ideas,  his  manner  of 
life,  his  very  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  At  the  outset  his  trust  is 
entire,  his  faculty  of  testing  and  of  criticism  almost  null.  But  soon, 
by  the  very  process  of  education,  his  reason  awakes  and  grows  stronger. 
From  thenceforth  he  carries  within  himself  an  inward  judge  who  sum- 
mons to  his  tribunal,  and  judges  by  his  own  law,  the  things  which  sur- 
round him,  and  those  which  are  taught  him.  He  will  know  for  himself 
the  world  in  the  midst  of  which  he  lives ;  he  tests  by  his  own  experience 
the  statements  of  his  teachers.  The  latter  may  no  longer  rely  upon  the 
prestige  of  their  authority;  they  are  obliged  to  give  him  proofs  and 
reasons;  they  must  persuade  him  if  they  would  gain  him,  and  if  in  his 
turn  he  expresses  an  opinion,  it  is  no  longer  upon  the  faith  of  others, 
but  as  the  result  of  an  inward  ordeal  to  which  he  has  submitted  it. 
Thus  the  method  of  direct  intuition  and  experiment  succeed  the  method 
of  authority,  not  by  the  way  of  arbitrary  evolution,  but  progressively, 
and  as  the  necessary  effect  of  the  development  of  the  conscience  and  the 
reason.  And  what  is  the  education  of  mankind  if  not  the  passage  from 
faith  in  authority  to  personal  conviction,  and  to  the  sustained  practice 
of  the  intellectual  duty  to  consent  to  no  idea  except  by  virtue  of  its 
recognised  truth,  to  accept  no  fact  until  its  reality  has  been,  in  one  way 
or  another,  established. 

A  like  evolution  toward  autonomy  has  gone  forward  in  the  history 
of  humanity.  Only  it  has  been  slower  and  more  stormy.  Emerging 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

from  the  state  of  nature,  humanity  tends  to  the  state  of  reason,  but  it 
has  not  yet  arrived  there.  The  heavy  chains  of  primitive  animality 
still  weigh  it  down,  and  it  is  only  by  throwing  off  those  that  are  out- 
ward, transforming  and  spiritualising  those  that  are  within,  that  it  can 
rise  to  liberty  and  light,  and  establish  itself  at  last  in  the  moral  security 
of  the  autonomous  conscience.  Authority  which  is  purely  exterior  is 
neither  reasonable  nor  disinterested.  It  ought  to  be  a  guide,  but  it 
grows  blind ;  tutelage  becomes  tyranny.  The  past  is  continually  strug- 
gling for  self-perpetuation  against  the  future  which  is  sure  to  dawn. 
Hence  those  conflicts,  crises,  revolutions,  martyrdoms,  which  make  the 
path  of  the  human  race  a  road  to  Calvary.  The  son  of  man  is  perpetu- 
ally climbing  it,  bearing  his  cross. 

And  yet  the  goal  is  there,  and  this  goal  is  the  enfranchisement  of 
the  spirit.  History  is  a  moral  pedagogy,  whose  vitality  lies  in  this  per- 
petual struggle  between  the  autonomy  of  the  conscience  and  social 
authority.  Of  this  struggle  are  born  all  the  problems  which  civilised 
peoples  to-day  have  to  face. 

In  the  political  order  it  is  the  conflict  between  the  governing  class 
and  the  governed.  The  authority  of  the  former  has  long  been  main- 
tained by  virtue  of  the  might  of  victorious  strength,  or  the  sovereignty 
of  divine  authority.  The  awakened  reason  asks  authority  for  its 
credentials,  and  the  latter  may  present  only  such  as  are  reasonable.  In 
one  way  or  another  it  must  show  that  it  acts  only  for  the  greatest  good 
of  the  governed,  and  exists  only  by  virtue  of  their  consent.  To  recon- 
cile the  autonomy  of  the  citizen  with  the  necessities  of  the  social  order: 
this  is  the  political  problem. 

The  same  conflict  exists  in  the  economic  order  between  capital,  which, 
being  accumulated  wealth,  is  also  the  authority  of  the  past,  and  labour, 
which  represents  the  present  effort  of  living  energy.  Labour  will  no 
longer  be  the  slave  of  capital;  it  also  aspires  to  autonomy.  To  con- 
ciliate the  autonomy  of  labour  with  the  necessities  of  the  industrial  order: 
this  is  the  economic  problem. 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

In  the  bosom  of  the  family  the  same  cause  produces  the  same  results. 
What  is  it  that  has  so  notably  weakened  the  ancient  authority  of  the 
father  over  his  children  and  domestics,  and  of  the  husband  over  his 
wife?  Whence  comes  the  struggle  now  going  on  in  all  civilised  nations 
between  woman  and  man?  It  is  the  same  principle  of  autonomy,  which, 
gathering  strength  from  all  that  develops  the  forces  of  the  mind,  so 
disquietingly  shocks  the  deepest  foundations  of  the  old  world.  To 
reconcile  the  rights  of  the  moral  personality  of  woman  and  child  with 
the  existence  and  the  unity  necessary  to  a  family,  this  above  all  others, 
is  the  social  problem. 

In  the  order  of  religious  and  philosophic  thought,  the  antagonism 
is  not  less  acute,  nor  the  crisis  less  threatening.  The  dualistic  concep- 
tion of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  the  antithesis  of  a  world  ex- 
terior to  God  and  a  God  exterior  to  the  world,  acting  and  reacting  upon 
one  another  from  without,  the  government  of  the  world  by  those 
catastrophes  which  we  call  miracles,  the  supernatural  authority  which 
the  churches  draw  from  this  method  to  substantiate  their  claim  to  im- 
pose their  irrational  dogmas  upon  the  faith  of  the  simple,  and  govern 
minds  as  the  kings  of  the  earth  used  to  govern  bodies,  all  this  old  system 
has  succumbed  under  the  irresistible  activity  of  the  emancipated  philo- 
sophic reason.  Here,  again,  autonomy  in  revolt  first  of  all  showed 
the  way  to  irreligion  and  atheism,  just  as,  in  politics,  it  engenders  upris- 
ings and  causes  strikes  in  the  industrial  order,  and  the  free  union  in  the 
family  order.  Violent  explosions  always  make  ruins,  but  ruins  are  not 
solutions.  To  reconcile  the  autonomy  of  thought  with  the  indefeasible 
laws  of  the  moral  consciousness,  scientific  freedom  with  faith  in  the  God 
who  is  spirit:  this  is  the  religious  and  moral  problem — more  profound 
and  urgent  than  all  the  others. 

The  relations  between  authority  and  autonomy  are,  then,  neither 
simple  nor  easy,  because  autonomy  and  authority  are  not  fixed  quan- 
tities, but  states  essentially  unstable,  and  always  yet  to  be.  It  must  be 
clearly  understood  that  the  passage  from  one  system  to  another  has  as 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

its  ineluctable  condition,  so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  the  passing  of  the 
animal  life  into  the  life  of  the  spirit.  The  sovereignty  of  external 
authority  is  weakened  only  when  that  of  reason  and  the  conscience 
begin  and  increase.  As  the  reptile  may  not  hope  to  soar  in  upper  air 
before  growing  wings  and  becoming  a  bird,  so  the  man  who  continues 
to  live  a  purely  animal  life  may  not  aspire  to  a  true  autonomy.  Violent 
agitations  may  achieve  a  change  of  master,  but  they  cannot  bring 
the  man  out  of  slavery.  Here  the  nature  of  the  being  deter- 
mines the  conditions  of  his  life.  The  animal  can  but  serve  or  dis- 
appear. 

This  is  the  vicious  circle  in  which  those  revolutionaries  are  turn- 
ing who  dream  that  by  violence  they  can  put  an  end  to  a  system  of 
authority.  If  they  join  forces  to  oppose  a  greater  material  strength 
to  that  which  the  hated  authority  commands,  they  may,  indeed,  triumph 
over  it,  but  the  victorious  strength,  being  merely  brute  strength,  must 
necessarily  create  a  new  rule  of  authority,  which  will  be  as  much  more 
burdensome  as  the  strength  which  founded  it  was  more  irresistible. 
Thus,  in  the  French  Revolution,  we  saw  the  despotism  of  absolute  mon- 
archy give  place  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Convention,  and  this,  after  a 
few  years  of  anarchy,  disappear  before  the  military  tyranny  of 
Napoleon.  Material  forces  were  opposed  to  and  beaten  by  forces 
greater,  but  of  the  same  nature.  Reason  is  to  liberty,  and  to  the  har- 
mony of  spirits,  that  which  the  law  of  gravitation  is  to  the  movements 
of  matter.  Reason  can  assert  no  influence  over  the  movements  of 
bodies,  weight  can  do  nothing  with  the  organisation  of  spirits.  The 
sole  way  of  escape  from  the  action  of  brute  force  is  the  consciousness 
of  yielding  full  obedience  to  the  inward  law  of  reason. 

Authority  is  a  necessary  function  of  the  species,  and  for  very  self- 
preservation  it  watches  over  that  offspring  in  whom  its  life  is  prolonged. 
To  undertake  to  suppress  it  is  to  misapprehend  the  physiological  and 
historic  conditions  of  life,  whether  individual  or  collective.  Itself  both 
pedagogic  method  and  social  bond,  it  may  be  transformed,  it  cannot 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

disappear.  Pure  anarchists  are  unconscious  dreamers.  The  species  and 
the  individual,  tradition  which  is  the  experience  of  the  past,  and  the 
experience  of  to-day  which  will  be  the  tradition  of  to-morrow,  are  data 
equally  positive  and  inviolable.  Their  reciprocal  play,  the  actions  and 
reactions  which  flow  from  them,  are  the  very  warp  of  history.  None 
may  with  impunity  isolate  himself  from  his  race  and  his  social 
cradle.  None  may  dare,  without  forfeit,  to  renounce  the  benefits  or  the 
burdens  of  the  solidarity  which  unites  him  with  his  brothers,  his  fore- 
fathers, and  his  children.  We  should  fall  to  the  level  of  the  brute  if 
each  one  had  to  begin  for  himself  the  work  of  the  ages.  Individuality 
itself  would  thus  find  its  ruin,  for  individuality  is  the  child  and  heir 
of  the  labours  of  the  entire  human  race,  which  alone,  by  preparing  its 
moral  and  material  conditions,  have  made  possible  its  appearance.  Why, 
then,  is  the  civilised  man  less  a  slave  to  the  fetters  of  nature  than  the 
savage?  His  present  autonomy  rests  upon  the  authority  of  tradition, 
and  is  its  fruit.1 

Humanity  does  not  exist  outside  of  the  individual  man,  or  without 
him ;  the  individual  man  does  not  exist  outside  of  humanity  and  without 
it.  The  individual  and  society  are  the  object  one  of  the  other.  Their 
apparently  contradictory  rights  are,  in  reality,  mutual  duties.  The 
moral  dignity  of  a  society  is  measured  by  what  it  does  to  educate  and 
form  the  personality  of  its  members,  the  moral  dignity  of  an  individual 
by  what  he  does  for  his  brothers,  and  for  the  social  body  to  which  he  be- 
longs. The  well-being  of  one  necessarily  depends  on  that  of  the  other. 
Where  individuality  is  weak,  without  initiative  or  energy,  the  social 
body,  whatever  its  extent  in  space,  is  neither  strong  nor  really  great. 
That  society  which,  to  maintain  itself,  oppresses  individual  souls,  and 
sacrifices  their  rights  and  their  culture  to  its  own  tranquillity,  is  like 
a  mother  who  should  devour  her  children.  The  individual  who,  by  his 
own  selfishness,  exploits  or  destroys  the  social  bond,  is  the  perverse  or 
heedless  child  who,  to  warm  himself,  sets  fire  to  the  house  of  his  fathers. 

Social  authority  and  individual  autonomy  are  not  more  hostile,  and  can 

1  Appendix  III. 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION 

no  more  legitimately  be  opposed  to  one  another,  than  the  final  destiny 
of  man  from  that  of  humanity. 

And  yet  authority  is  never  other  than  a  power  of  fact.  This  is  to 
say  that  it  cannot  be  the  philosophic  explanation  nor  the  ultimate  reason 
of  anything.  A  provisional  and  intermediary  condition,  a  method  of 
protecting  the  good  acquired  in  the  past,  the  explanation  of  authority 
lies  in  that  which  preceded  it,  and  its  justification  in  that  which  must 
follow  it.  When  we  accept  political,  philosophical,  moral,  or  religious 
decisions,  we  suppose  them,  and  those  who  promulgate  them  always  sup- 
pose them,  to  be  just  and  reasonable.  An  authority,  whatever  its 
nature,  convicted  of  injustice  and  unreasonableness,  falls  under  the 
dominion  of  the  mind  of  him  who  submits  to  it.  Whether  willingly  or 
unwillingly,  authority  must  own  the  control  of  reason.  In  the  historic 
evolution  of  humanity  it  represents  a  rational  condition  which  maintains 
it  as  long  as  itself  endures.  When  the  condition  is  outworn  authority 
must  perforce  change,  whether  it  will  or  not. 

Formerly  the  father  of  the  family  had  the  power  of  life  and  death 
over  his  children  and  slaves,  and  could  be  called  to  account  by  no  one 
for  the  way  in  which  he  treated  them.  Kings  and  priests  had  a  power 
no  less  absolute  over  their  subjects  or  their  flock.  Not  very  long  ago 
the  King  of  France,  of  his  sole  will,  could  throw  a  citizen  into  the 
Bastile;  the  French  father  could  put  his  daughter  into  a  convent,  and 
the  Church,  with  the  aid  of  the  civil  power,  could  send  a  heretic  to  the 
scaffold.  Why  is  all  this  impossible  to-day? 

An  established  authority,  however  great  its  antiquity  or  its  power, 
never  carries  its  justification  in  itself.  It  must  show  itself  reasonable 
to  the  awakened  reason  which  demands  its  credentials.  By  that  fact  it  has 
been  changed.  The  fact  must  show  itself  reasonable,  or,  in  other  words, 
the  budding  law  of  reason  tends  to  change  itself  into  fact,  by  modi- 
fying the  inward  state.  Authority  can  maintain  itself  only  by  becom- 
ing more  moral ;  by  placing  its  supporting  point  always  less  apart  from 
man,  always  more  essentially  within  the  man  himself.  The  authority  of 


INTRODUCTION  xxvii 

material  force,  of  custom,  tradition,  the  code,  more  and  more  yields 
place  to  the  inward  authority  of  conscience  and  the  reason,  and  in  the 
same  measure  becomes  transformed  for  the  subject  into  a  true  autonomy. 
The  sphere  of  rule  is  not  decreased ;  much  the  contrary ;  the  rule  will  be 
so  much  the  better  obeyed  as  it  becomes  immanent  in  the  conscience  and 
the  will  of  man,  and  identifies  itself  with  his  own  moral  nature.  Theft 
is  a  crime  which  public  force  represses.  My  property  will  be  much 
better  guarded  if  I  live  among  thoroughly  honest  people  than  it  could 
be  by  the  intermittent  vigilance  of  the  policeman  if  I  lived  among 
thieves.  The  fear  of  the  court-martial  does  not  always  deter  the  con- 
scienceless soldier  from  deserting  in  the  face  of  the  enemy ;  but  if  patriot- 
ism has  possession  of  me  as  a  sacred  duty,  this  sentiment  will  be  more 
efficacious  to  make  me  a  soldier  faithful  to  the  flag  than  all  the  threats 
in  the  world.  There  is  all  the  difference  between  legality  and  morality, 
between  abstaining  from  evil  and  virtue. 

Far  from  leading  to  anarchy,  the  true  autonomy,  which  is  and  can 
be  no  other  than  the  true  obedience  and  inward  consecration  of  the  soul 
to  the  law  of  goodness,  can  alone  bring  about  the  highest  order  and 
entire  harmony. 

Being  essentially  progressive,  and  far  removed  from  the  state  of 
perfection,  neither  authority  nor  autonomy  may  be  posited  as  absolute. 
They  act  upon  one  another  for  mutual  strength,  and  together  they 
aspire  toward  the  same  ideal  of  right  and  justice.  Autonomy,  in  action, 
transforms  authority  by  gradually  displacing  its  seat.  So  much  the 
more  does  authority  contribute  to  the  development  of  autonomy.  From 
their  interaction  results  the  progress  of  humanity. 

Thence  it  follows  that  every  historic  authority  demands  at  once  re- 
spect and  criticism;  respect  because,  being  the  expression  of  a  given 
tradition,  custom,  social  state,  it  brings  us  an  inheritance  by  which  we 
have  profited  and  shall  continue  to  profit;  criticism,  because  by  elevat- 
ing our  conscience  and  reason,  this  very  authority  no  longer  represents 
anything  other  than  a  bygone  phase  of  evolution,  and  its  only  reason 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION 

for  being  must  be  a  new  progress.  Free  inquiry,  with  regard  to  author- 
ity, is  not  only  a  right,  it  is  a  duty.  The  new  truth  discovered  by  free 
inquiry  is  older  and  more  venerable  than  the  most  venerable  authority. 
After  his  years  of  school  and  apprenticeship,  man  is  called  by  the  very 
seriousness  of  life  to  revise  the  opinions  of  his  master,  to  accept  the 
heritage  of  the  past  only  for  what  it  is  worth,  to  conduct  himself  toward 
the  institutions  of  his  country,  with  a  view  to  making  them  better  sub- 
serve the  common  good.  This  is  the  progress  of  human  affairs;  they 
never  make  better  advance  than  when  they  are  freed  from  the  injurious 
constraint  of  a  superstition  which  renders  authority  incapable  of  prog- 
ress, or  a  revolt  which  destroys  it.  The  new  generations  which  sub- 
mitted to  authority  now  exercise  it  in  their  turn,  and  if  they  have  truly 
profited  by  the  experiences  of  their  elders,  they  will  exercise  it  after 
a  much  more  reasonable  and  useful  fashion. 

To  conclude:  Authority,  in  its  true  conception,  is,  and  can  be  no 
other  than  relative. 

m 

Of  Authority  m  Matters  of  Religion 

THIS  theory  of  the  national  genesis  and  social  function  of  authority 
will  easily  be  granted  for  the  ordinary  course  of  human  things  in  gen- 
eral. But  when  the  question  is  of  religion,  men  stop  and  protest.  They 
postulate  for  it  an  authority  of  another  sort  and  origin,  without  which, 
they  say,  religion  cannot  be  maintained.  The  divers  religious  ortho- 
doxies differ,  as  to  the  form  or  the  seat  of  authority;  some  put  it  in 
the  Bible,  others  in  the  Church;  but  they  are  in  accord  as  to  its 
nature. 

All  of  them  claim  that  the  authority  which  they  have  constituted 
within  themselves  is  the  expression  of  a  divine  authority.  Supernatural 
in  its  institution,  it  must  be  infallible  in  its  teaching  and  its  decrees. 
This  dogma  becomes  the  foundation  and  guaranty  of  all  the  others. 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

The  method  of  authority  asserts  itself,  and  religion,  sheltered  from 
every  commotion,  remains  motionless  in  the  midst  of  universal  mobility. 

Thus  the  question  which  is  the  object  of  our  study  is  seen  to  be 
at  least  sharply  circumscribed  and  defined.  We  are  not  concerned  with 
those  natural,  historic,  and  human  authorities,  which  are  born  of  the 
very  force  of  things,  and  are  modified  according  to  the  evolution  of  the 
reason  and  the  conscience,  whose  right  of  censure  they  accept  or  endure. 
Nothing  is  more  natural,  nor  more  easy  to  conceive  and  justify,  than 
that  authorities  of  this  order  should  be  organised  in  religious  societies, 
and  particularly  in  the  Christian  Church,  to  exercise  the  same  tutelary 
and  pedagogic  function,  respond  to  the  same  needs,  and  tend  to  the 
same  end — the  spiritual  autonomy  of  believers. 

Who  would  deny,  from  this  point  of  view,  the  action  of  the  Church 
and  the  Bible  ?  Doubtless  we  must  make  reservations  here ;  nothing  that 
takes  place  in  history  is  perfect:  light  and  shadow  are  everywhere 
mingled  and  everywhere  in  conflict.  The  family  itself,  sweetest  and 
holiest  of  institutions,  has  been  found  capable  of  being  an  instrument 
of  tyranny.  But,  taken  all  in  all,  where  shall  we  find  a  higher  or  more 
universal  school  of  respect  and  virtue  than  in  the  Church,  a  more  effica- 
cious means  of  comfort  and  consolation  than  the  communion  of  brethren, 
a  safer  tutelary  shelter  for  souls  still  in  their  minority?  And  what 
part  played  in  history  is  comparable  to  that  of  the  Church  in  the  history 
of  European  civilisation?  On  the  other  hand,  what  can  we  say  of  the 
Bible  which  would  not  fall  short  of  the  reality?  It  is  the  book  above 
all  books,  light  of  the  conscience,  bread  of  the  soul,  leaven  of  all  reforms. 
It  is  the  lamp  that  hangs  from  the  arched  roof  of  the  sanctuary,  to  give 
light  to  those  who  are  seeking  God.  The  destiny  of  holiness  on  earth  is 
irrevocably  linked  with  the  destiny  of  the  Bible. 

Christianity  can  neither  realise  nor  propagate  itself  without  the 
Church;  the  Church  cannot  live  without  the  Bible,  that  original  source 
and  classic  norm  of  the  religious  life,  as  it  is  manifest  in  the  Church 
itself.  These  are  potencies  of  fact,  of  historic  authority,  and  in  their 


INTRODUCTION 

order  come  into  being  in  no  other  way,  are  no  otherwise  developed  and 
made  active,  than  are  political  and  pedagogical  institutions  in  the  civil 
order  and  in  general  culture. 

But  just  as  in  former  times  a  political  school,  not  satisfied  with 
recognising  natural  rights,  and  anxious  to  defend  the  monarchical 
orders,  sought  to  clothe  its  power  with  a  supernatural  and  divine  right,  so 
the  dogmatic  of  the  ancient  Fathers  wrested  the  Bible  and  the  Church 
from  history,  misapprehended  their  relative  and  conditioned  character, 
and  erected  them  into  immediately  divine  authorities  and  infallible  oracles. 
From  that  time  the  Church  and  the  Bible  have  no  longer  been  simply 
school  teachers,  who  help  the  child  to  discover  the  truth  for  himself, 
and  afterward  to  possess  it  in  himself;  they  have  been  the  model  and 
matter  of  truth  itself.  From  methods  naturally  designed  to  lead  men  to 
faith,  they  have  become  the  first  objects  of  faith.  The  first,  and  often 
the  last  article  of  the  credo  of  more  than  one  Christian,  is  to  believe  in 
the  Bible.  Strictly  speaking,  this  dispenses  with  the  others,  since  the 
others  are  contained  in  this,  and  depend  upon  it. 

Thus  were  formulated  and  established  the  fundamental  dogmas  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  system  and  of  the  old  Protestant  system ;  the  super- 
natural authority  of  the  Church,  and  the  supernatural  authority  of  the 
Bible,  implying,  as  an  inevitable  consequence,  the  infallibility  of  one  or 
the  other.  The  critical  examination  of  these  two  dogmas  is  laid  upon  us. 

What  method  shall  we  bring  to  it?  Only  one  is  of  value  to-day — 
that  dictated  by  the  scientific  spirit.  In  the  order  of  the  moral  sciences, 
it  is  the  historical  and  critical  method,  including  at  once  the  testimony 
of  psychology  and  of  history.  Is  there  in  the  course  of  historic  evolu- 
tion any  trace  of  the  supernatural  institution  of  an  external,  infallible 
authority,  with  mission  to  rule  over  all  religious  spirits?  How  were 
formed  those  dogmas  which  make  this  divine  institution  the  first  article 
of  the  Christian  faith?  These  are  questions  of  fact  which,  before  all 
other  things,  depend  upon  history. 

We  shall,  therefore,  put  aside  from  the  outset  all  abstract  or  utili- 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

tarian  arguments  a  priori,  which  encumber  the  subject,  such  as  these: 
God,  having  given  to  men  a  supernatural  revelation,  must  have  insti- 
tuted a  supernatural  authority,  as  much  to  preserve  it  from  alteration, 
as  to  interpret  it  without  error ;  or,  The  greater  part  of  our  knowledge 
comes  from  the  testimony  of  others;  we  live  by  authority,  therefore 
there  must  be  an  infallible  authority  to  teach  us  religious  truth;  or 
again :  The  benefits  of  the  Church  and  the  effects  of  the  Bible  excel  all 
others,  therefore  the  Church  or  the  Bible,  or  both,  must  have  been  in- 
stituted by  a  miraculous  act  of  God  himself.  It  needs  only  to  analyse 
such  arguments  to  perceive  that  they  move  in  a  vicious  circle,  taking 
for  granted  what  ought  to  be  demonstrated,  or  that  they  are  insufficient 
because  of  the  infinite  distance  between  the  premisses  and  the  conclusion. 

For  more  cogent  reasons  we  shall  pass  over  the  political  argument 
to  which  the  name  of  Joseph  de  Maistre  has  been  attached,  and  which  is 
summed  up  in  his  famous  book  "  Of  the  Pope  " :  The  question  is  not 
whether  the  Pope  is  infallible,  but  whether  he  must  be  infallible;  there 
is  no  religion  without  a  church,  there  is  no  church  without  government, 
there  is  no  government  without  a  sovereign  power,  which  definitely,  and 
without  appeal,  sets  a  term  to  all  controversy  and  debate.  This  is  con- 
fusing infallibility  of  right  with  sovereignty  in  fact ;  it  makes  religious 
truth  a  political  fiction.  It  is  an  open  profession  that  there  is  neither 
law  for  the  conscience  nor  truth  for  the  reason.  Political  minds  may 
admire  these  reasonings,  and  make  use  of  them;  no  philosophic  spirit 
will  ever  bow  before  them.  Against  the  brutal  fact  which  would  over- 
bear it,  the  reason  lifts  up  an  imprescriptible  protest. 

Furthermore,  every  dogma  has  a  history;  a  history  which,  while 
explaining  it,  also  judges  it:  Die  Geschichte  ist  ein  Gericht.  In  the 
history  of  any  doctrine  there  is  an  immanent  dialectic  which  successively 
throws  all  its  aspects  into  relief,  deduces  from  them  all  their  conse- 
quences, exposes  all  their  contradictions,  so  that  to  follow  the  process 
is  to  learn  how  a  system,  an  institution,  a  dogma,  are  formed,  and  to 
appreciate  their  value. 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION 

Such  is  the  method  which  we  shall  apply  to  the  problem  of  authority 
in  religious  matters.  The  first  two  books  of  this  work  will  be  conse- 
crated to  the  history  of  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  dogmas 
of  authority.  In  the  third,  we  shall  ask  whether  the  very  nature  of 
Christianity  does  not  exclude  every  rule  of  authority,  whether  the 
authoritative  forms  which  until  now  it  has  worn  were  not,  in  the 
earlier  period  of  its  history,  survivals  of  the  antique  religions  which  it 
believed  itself  to  have  abolished  and  replaced;  finally,  whether  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Spirit  ought  not  to  be,  by  that  very  fact,  the  religion  of 
personal  faith  and  of  freedom.1 

1  2  Cor.  iii.  6,  17.  See  Descartes,  "Discourse  upon  Method,"  1635;  Schleiermacher, 
"Monologues,"  1800,  "Der  christl.  Glaube  Einleit.,"  3.  Ausg.,  1835;  F.  G.  Fichte, 
"  Die  Bestimmung  des  Menschen,"  edit.  1845;  Ketteler,  Bishop  of  Mayence,  "  Freiheit, 
Autoritat,  und  Kirche,"  3d  edit.,  1864. 


BOOK  I 
THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  DOGMA   OF  AUTHORITY 


BOOK  I 
THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  DOGMA  OF  AUTHORITY 

CHAPTER  ONE 

DEFINITION    OF    THE    DOGMA 

THE  Roman  Catholic  dogma  of  authority  took  about  sixteen  centuries 
for  its  constitution  and  definition.  The  contemporaries  of  Irenseus  and 
Tertullian  saw  its  birth ;  in  our  own  day  we  have  seen  its  completion  at 
the  Vatican  Council.  In  this  long  labour  is  condensed  and  summed  up 
the  entire  evolution  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

It  is  open  to  anyone  to  discern  a  divine  work  in  this  process  of  his- 
tory ;  but  even  then  it  must  be  admitted  that,  in  this  case,  the  ways  of 
Providence  coincide  and  make  one  with  the  action  of  historic  causes, 
which  have  never  ceased,  during  this  long  period  of  time,  to  unfold  their 
natural  consequences.  Miracle  or  mystery  is  in  no  part  of  this  work, 
and  another  Montesquieu  would  find  no  more  difficulty  in  explaining  the 
singular  history  of  Papal  Rome  than  the  first  found  in  making  intel- 
ligible the  no  less  astonishing  greatness  and  decadence  of  the  Rome  of 
kings,  consuls,  and  Caesars.  In  default  of  genius,  we  believe  that  the 
patient  and  attentive  study  of  events  and  of  texts,  considered  in  their 
progress  and  their  interrelations,  will  suffice. 

I 
The  Formula  of  the  Dogma 

WHILE  in  full  agreement  in  professing  the  general  principle  of  the 
infallible  authority  of  the  Church  and  its  tradition,  Roman  Catholics 
before  the  Council  of  1870  were  profoundly  divided  by  the  question: 
What  is  the  seat  of  this  principle,  and  what  its  organ? 


4  THE  FORMULA  OF  THE  DOGMA 

Since  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  theologians  and  jurisconsults 
of  the  Church  had  been  divided  into  three  schools.  One  followed  the 
teaching  of  the  University  of  Paris  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  the 
Councils  of  Pisa,  Constance,  and  Basel ;  they  placed  the  supreme  author- 
ity in  the  Council  General,  and  recognised  its  right  to  censure  the  Pope, 
and  even,  in  case  of  need,  to  depose  him  for  cause  of  scandal  or 
heresy.1 

More  moderate  and  more  conciliating,  above  all  things  unwilling  to 
expose  themselves  to  the  danger  of  a  rupture  with  the  Roman  See,  or  of 
misapprehending  the  prerogative  of  those  whom  they  believed  to  be  the 
successors  of  Peter,  Gallicans  like  Bossuet  placed  authority,  not  in 
the  Council  alone,  nor  in  the  Pope  alone,  but  in  their  definitive  and 
necessary  agreement.  This  collaboration  and  harmony  represented  in 
their  eyes  the  plenary  and  total  union  of  the  Catholic  Church,  to  which 
alone  the  promise  of  infallibility  had  been  made.2  Finally,  the  third 
school,  the  ultramontane,  of  which  Joseph  de  Maistre  and  Louis 
Veuillot  were  the  most  ardent  apostles  during  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  placed  the  Pope  above  the  Council  General,  anathema- 
tised the  Gallicism  of  Bossuet,  and  claimed  for  the  person  of  the  vicar 
of  Christ  alone  the  supernatural  privilege  of  infallibility,  the  right  and 
power  to  define  the  faith  and  to  decide  all  controversies. 

Thus  three  conceptions  of  the  Church  and  its  government  confronted 
one  another.  According  to  the  first,  the  Church  was  an  aristocratic  re- 
public (the  body  of  bishops),  whose  president  might  be  nominated  and 
deposed  at  need  by  the  Council  General,  the  authentic  representative  of 
the  whole  body.  According  to  the  second,  the  Church  was  a  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  the  law  of  which  resulted  from  the  consent  and  accord 
of  the  two  arms  of  power.  And,  finally,  according  to  the  third,  it  was 
an  absolute  monarchy,  in  which  all  rights  and  powers  were  concentrated 
in  the  person  of  the  sovereign  and  flowed  from  him. 

This  last  doctrine  was  destined  to  triumph  in  the  end,  because  it 
1  Appendix  IV.  *  Appendix  V. 


THE  FORMULA  OF  THE  DOGMA  6 

was  imbedded  in  the  logic  of  the  generative  principle  of  Roman  Cathol- 
icism. 

Doubtless  it  was  entirely  unknown  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
Church,  although  Cyprian  and  Augustine  did  indeed  unwittingly 
posit  its  premisses  in  their  theory  of  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter.  But  it  was 
affirmed  with  great  brilliancy  and  power  in  the  theocratic  programmes  of 
Gregory  VII,  Innocent  III,  and  Boniface  VIII.1  If  it  underwent  an 
eclipse  in  the  crisis  of  the  Papacy  in  the  fifteenth  century,  it  was  not 
slow  to  reassert  itself  in  the  sixteenth,  finding  then  in  the  Company  of 
Jesus  an  admirable  army  of  defence,  which  in  theory  and  in  fact  made 
it  victorious.  Thenceforth  everything  lent  it  aid,  quite  as  much  the 
impotent  attacks  of  its  adversaries  as  the  apologies  of  its  advocates. 
It  was  an  unequal  struggle  between  the  Council  and  the  papacy. 

One  was  intermittent,  the  other  was  always  there.  From  the  time 
that  the  power  to  convoke  the  Council  and  interpret  its  decisions  was 
reposed  in  the  Pope,  he  became  its  master.  He  had  only  to  make  effec- 
tive that  right  of  sovereign  arbiter  and  supreme  interpreter  of  the 
thought  of  the  Church  which  the  Council  of  Trent  had  recognised  as  his. 
The  Roman  curia  was  prudently  careful  not  to  bring  forward  before 
its  hour  the  dogmatic  question  of  infallibility.  It  left  fact  and  habit 
to  create  law  and  dogma,  and  limited  its  own  action  to  rigorous  con- 
demnation of  those  who  still  held  the  contrary  doctrine,  obliging  them  to 
recant  or  keep  silent.  Thus  the  world  became  accustomed  to  look  upon 
Rome  as  the  fountain  of  divine  authority  in  the  Church.  Whoever  re- 
fused to  accept  its  decisions  soon  found  himself  cut  off  from  Catholic 
communion.  In  1854  Pius  IX  made  the  first  trial  of  his  power.  He 
consulted  the  bishops  without  calling  them  together  for  deliberation, 
and  then,  upon  his  own  pontifical  authority,  added  a  new  dogma,  that 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Virgin,  to  the  Credo  of  the  Church. 
Protestations  were  vigorous,  but  few  and  impotent.  The  time  was  ripe. 
He  who  exercised  such  a  power  should  possess  it  by  law.  It  was  possible 
and  it  had  become  necessary  to  give  final  definition  to  this  sovereign 

1  Appendix  VI. 


6  THE  FORMULA  OF  THE  DOGMA 

authority,   and   secure   its    recognition   by   the  entire   Church.      The 

proclamation  of  the  dogma  in  an  Ecumenical  Council  would  be  the  solemn 

abdication  of  the  rights  and  powers  of  Councils  into  the  hands  of  the 

papacy.     For  this  purpose  the  Vatican  Council  was  convoked  in  1870, 

whence  was  promulgated  the  dogma  of  the  personal  infallibility  of  the 

Pope. 

The  infallible  authority  of  the  Council  infallibly  created  the  in- 
fallible authority  of  the  Pope,  and  by  that  act  died.  There  could  not 
be  two  infallibilities  in  the  Church.  In  questions  of  faith  and  morals,  the 
Pope  has  sovereign  authority  apart  from  the  Council.  The  Council 
apart  from  the  Pope  would  have  no  authority.  Appeal  to  the  Council, 
so  frequent  in  past  centuries,  has  become  an  absurdity.  To  convoke  it 
would  be  a  useless  luxury. 

The  decree  concerning  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  was  voted  on 
July  18,  1870,  with  unanimity  of  all  members  of  the  Council  present, 
save  two.  The  other  opposing  members  had  preferred  to  absent  them- 
selves from  Rome.  The  following  is  the  definitive  formula: 

"  Conformably  to  the  tradition  faithfully  followed  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Christian  faith,  with  the  approbation  of  the  holy  Council, 
we  teach  and  define  this  as  divinely  revealed  dogma: 

"  The  Roman  Pontiff,  when  speaking  ex  cathedra — that  is,  when 
performing  the  office  of  Pastor  and  Doctor  of  all  Christians  he  defines, 
in  virtue  of  his  superior  apostolic  authority,  a  point  of  doctrine  touching 
faith  and  morals,  obligatory  for  the  entire  Church — the  Roman  Pontiff, 
thanks  to  the  divine  assistance  which  was  promised  to  him  in  the  person 
of  the  Most  Blessed  Peter,  enjoys  that  infallible  authority  with  which 
the  divine  Redeemer  endowed  his  Church,  when  the  question  arises  of 
defining  doctrine  concerning  faith  or  morals.  The  definitions  of  the 
Roman  Pontiff  are  then  unchangeable  in  themselves,  and  are  not  ren- 
dered such  by  the  consent  of  the  Church.  If  anyone — which  God  for- 
bid!— is  presumptuous  enough  to  contradict  our  definition,  let  him  be 
anathema." 


THE  FORMULA  OF  THE  DOGMA  7 

Side  by  side  with  this  decree  we  may  place  the  parallel  decree  of  the 
same  Council  upon  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Pope: 

"  The  Roman  Pontiff  has  not  only  the  office  of  inspection  and  direc- 
tion, but  also  full  and  supreme  power  of  jurisdiction  over  the  universal 
Church,  not  only  in  things  which  concern  faith  and  morals,  but  also  in 
those  which  concern  the  discipline  and  government  of  the  Church  in  the 
whole  universe.  Not  only  does  he  possess  the  highest  parts  of  this  power, 
but  he  has  it  in  all  its  plenitude.  And  this  his  power  is  ordinary  and  im- 
mediate, as  much  over  all  the  Churches  in  general,  and  each  Church  in 
particular,  as  over  each  Pastor  and  all  the  faithful  of  whatever  rite  or 
dignity  they  may  be.  If  anyone  denies  it,  let  him  be  anathema !  " 

From  the  comparison  of  these  two  texts  emerges  with  perfect  clear- 
ness the  mind  of  the  Vatican  Council.  The  first  defines  the  dogmatic 
authority  of  the  supreme  Doctor  of  the  Church ;  the  second  explains,  the 
absolute  sovereignty  of  the  pastor.  One  cannot  doubt  the  decisions  of 
the  one  without  falling  into  heresy,  nor,  without  falling  into  revolt,  re- 
fuse the  obedience  always  due  to  the  other.  It  will  not  suffice  to  adhere 
to  the  definitions  of  the  commandments  which  the  Apostolic  See  has  given 
in  the  past,  one  must  also  be  ready  to  accept  everything  which  it  may 
advise  or  decide  in  the  future.  Thus  recently  decreed  Pius  IX  and 
Leo  XIII.  .  .  .  "In  the  difficult  course  of  events,  Catholic  believers, 
if  they  will  give  heed  to  us  as  they  are  bound  to  do,  will  see  what  are  the 
duties  of  each,  as  much  in  the  opinions  which  they  ought  to  hold  as  in 
the  things  which  they  ought  to  do.  In  the  matter  of  thinking,  it  is 
necessary  for  them  to  embrace  and  firmly  hold  all  that  the  Roman  Pon- 
tiffs have  transmitted  to  them,  or  shall  yet  transmit,  and  to  make  public 
profession  of  them  as  often  as  circumstances  make  necessary.  Espe- 
cially and  particularly  in  what  is  called  '  modern  liberties,'  they  must 
abide  by  the  judgment  of  the  Apostolic  See,  and  each  believer  is  bound 
to  believe  thereupon  what  the  Holy  See  itself  thinks."  * 

'Appendix  VII. 


8  THE  MEANING  OF  THE  DOGMA 

II 

The  Meaning  of  the  Dogma 

IT  would  seem  difficult  to  dispute  the  meaning  or  the  bearing  of  a  dogma 
formulated  with  such  juridical  precision.  Nothing  that  concerns  the 
life  of  the  Christian  or  of  the  Church  is  foreign  to  it.  This  being  so, 
of  what  use  can  it  be  to  discuss  at  length,  as  has  been  done,  the  words  ex 
cathedra,  or  other  conditions  of  pontifical  infallibility?  Whether  the 
Pope  speaks  ex  cathedra  or  not — that  is,  in  his  capacity  as  universal 
Doctor,  or  universal  Pastor — is  a  point  never  left  to  the  judgment  of 
the  individual  mind.  So  soon  as  a  Catholic  believer  experiences  a  doubt 
upon  the  subject  it  is  his  first  and  sacred  duty  not  to  draw  from  that 
fact  a  pretext  for  non-obedience,  but  to  refer  the  question  to  the  Roman 
See  itself,  which  here,  as  in  all  other  cases,  remains  sole  and  sovereign 
judge.  No  opposition  of  any  sort  can  find  a  legitimate  basis  in  the 
formula  of  the  dogma.  To  be  sure,  upon  points  indifferent  to  their 
authority,  the  Popes  may  permit,  and  in  fact  they  do  permit,  in  Church 
or  school,  a  certain  degree  of  liberty.  But  it  is  not  a  liberty  founded  in 
right,  I  mean  in  the  dignity  of  the  spirit  or  of  the  conscience.  It  never 
exists  except  upon  those  points  and  within  those  limits  where  it  pleases 
the  Roman  See  to  tolerate  it. 

Being  no  longer  able  to  dispute  the  absolute  character  of  the  dogma, 
liberal  Catholics  endeavour  to  annul  it  by  reducing  it  to  a  pure  symbol. 
According  to  them,  the  person  of  the  Pope  speaking  ex  cathedra  can 
have  only  a  representative  value.  The  proclamation  of  his  infallibility 
can  have  changed  nothing  in  the  Church.  The  pontifical  voice  would 
never  be  anything  other  than  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  Catholic  Christian- 
ity. In  the  latter  essentially  resides  infallible  inspiration.  The  Pope 
is  the  exterior  hour  hand  which  marks  the  time  on  the  dial  plate  of  the 
Church,  which,  in  reality,  is  itself  moved  by  more  hidden  springs,  by  the 
profound  and  mysterious  movements  which  come  to  life  and  succeed  one 
another  in  the  general  consciousness  of  the  entire  body.  The  Church 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  DOGMA  0 

obeys  the  Pope  only  in  appearance.    It  is  the  Pope  who,  in  reality,  obeys 
the  Soul  of  the  Church. 

Thus  is  the  identification  of  the  Pope  and  the  Church  posited  at  the 
same  time  by  liberals  and  ultramontanes.  The  former  use  it  to  annul  the 
Pope,  the  latter  to  annul  the  Church. 

The  truth  of  the  dogma  is  with  the  latter.  To  make  it  evident  to  all 
eyes  they  have  only  to  recall  this  clause  of  the  decree :  Pontificis  romani 
definitiones  ex  sese,  non  autem  ex  consensu  ecclesia;  irreformabiles. 
Whence  it  appears  that  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  is  entirely  personal, 
independent  and  absolute.  This  separation  of  the  Pope  and  the  Church, 
of  the  head  and  the  body,  is  indeed  the  greatest  innovation  of  the  Council 
of  the  Vatican,  and  without  doubt  the  most  dangerous.  By  it  the 
Council  broke  with  the  ancient  tradition  and  opened  a  new  era  in  the 
historic  evolution  of  Catholicism. 

Let  us  here  establish  against  all  subterfuges  the  integrity  of  a  dogma 
which  timid  consciences  can  bring  themselves  neither  to  reject  nor  fully 
to  accept.  The  Pope  depends  only  upon  God.  From  God  he  imme- 
diately draws  his  enlightenment,  his  graces,  and  his  powers,  which  with 
divine  authority  he  afterwards  transmits  to  the  bishops  and  through 
them  to  the  entire  Church.  To  seek  to  overthrow  the  order  of  this 
hierarchy,  to  make  the  life  and  faith  of  the  Church  depend  upon  the 
Holy  Spirit  by  direct  means  and  immediate  communication,  in  such  sort 
that  the  inspiration  of  the  Pope  would  be  only  a  derived  inspiration, 
would  be  to  destroy  the  new  dogma,  root  and  branch.  The  Holy  Spirit 
is  not  in  the  Pope  because  he  is  first  in  the  Church,  an  invisible  and 
immanent  power;  he  is  in  the  Church  only  by  the  intermediary  and  the 
visible  presence  of  the  Pope.1 

As  grace  inheres  in  the  visible  matter  of  the  sacrament,  so  the  gift 
of  the  Spirit  inheres  in  the  person  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.     His  per- 
sonal infallibility,  which  comes  historically  as  the  cornice  of  the  edi- 
fice, becomes  dogmatically  its  foundation.      One  is  in  communion  with 
*Pezzani,  "Codex  S.  Ecclesiae  romanse,"  1893,  Canon  35,  p.  96. 


10  THE  MEANING  OF  THE  DOGMA 

the  Church  only  as  he  remains  in  communion  with  the  Pope.  If  by 
any  possibility  the  entire  body  of  the  Church,  that  is  to  say,  the  totality 
of  bishops,  priests,  and  people,  should  separate  themselves  from  the 
Pope  and  reject  his  definitions  and  his  decrees,  it  would  not  be  that  the 
Pope  was  in  error,  but  that  the  Church  herself  had  departed  from  the 
truth. 

Furthermore,  the  Roman  canonists,  with  invincible  logic,  have 
deduced  all  the  practical  consequences  which  flow  from  the  formula  of 
the  dogma.  No  issue  is  left  open  to  those  who  would  escape  them. 
The  following,  with  and  under  authority  of  the  Pope,  is  taught  in 
the  course  of  canon  law  in  the  Roman  University: 

"  To  the  Roman  pontiff  are  due  from  all  Catholics  honour  and  obedi- 
ence, even  when — which  God  forbid — the  Pope  is  a  bad  man." 

It  is  an  error  to  assert  that  the  power  of  the  Pope  may  be  limited 
by  the  canons  of  ecclesiastical  law,  by  the  customs  or  institutions  of  the 
Church;  the  Pope  is  above  the  canon  law.  As  to  natural  or  divine 
law,  doubtless  the  Pope  cannot  be  freed  from  it,  but  he  remains  its 
supreme  and  infallible  interpreter,  so  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  can 
never  be  in  the  right  in  setting  them  up  against  him.  Equally  it  would 
be  idle  or  even  ridiculous  to  oppose  to  him  the  Holy  Scriptures  or 
Catholic  tradition,  since  he  alone  holds  the  key  to  both,  that  is,  their 
authentic  and  legitimate  interpretation.2 

The  Roman  Pontiff  has  full  authority  over  all  Councils,  even  Ecu- 
menical. 

When  he  makes  a  Concordat  with  the  head  of  a  potential  State,  this 
Concordat  is  not  the  least  in  the  world  synallagmatic  and  equal  in  its 
two  parts.  The  prince  is  bound  to  conform  himself  to  it,  because  it 
is  his  Christian  duty  to  obey  the  Holy  See.  But  the  Pope,  in  accepting 
the  Concordat,  makes  a  purely  gracious  concession,  always  revocable 

1  76.,  Can.  29. 

*  lb.,  Can.  S3.    The  Pope  has  the  right,  if  be  please,  to  designate  his  successor 
(Can.  48). 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  DOGMA  11 

whenever  such  a  concession  may  turn  to  the  detriment  of  the  Church, 
or  when  it  simply  ceases  to  be  of  any  utility  to  the  Church.1 

Even  in  the  matter  of  opinions  which  concern  neither  dogma  nor 
morals,  it  is  of  strict  obligation  to  receive  and  to  profess,  the  case  occur- 
ring, all  past,  present,  and  future  instructions  and  directions  of  the 
sovereign  Pontiffs.  And  it  is  not  enough  to  yield  them  external  obedi- 
ence in  silence  and  respect.  The  only  worthy  and  religious  obedience 
is  inward,  the  obedience  of  the  heart.2 

So  soon  as  faith  becomes  nothing  other  than  submission  to  an  external 
authority,  theology  is  necessarily  reduced  to  be  the  mere  redaction  of 
a  code  of  canon  law.  Is  a  discussion  raised  in  the  Church,  the  con- 
testing powers  soon  cease  to  argue,  and  seek  to  evoke  a  decision  of  the 
Roman  court,  which  shall  crush  the  adversary  and  put  an  end  to  the 
dispute.  Religious  truth  is  then  not  a  matter  of  knowledge  or*  of 
reason,  but  of  politics  and  diplomacy. 

In  the  Roman  system  it  becomes  thenceforth  impossible  to  find  the 
slightest  basis  for  a  constitutional  opposition  to  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Pope.  The  government  of  the  Pope,  being  the  government  of  God,  is 
necessarily  absolute.  Theocracy  is  the  foundation  of  the  dogma  of 
the  Vatican.3 

If  the  utterance  of  the  Pope  is  the  source  of  truth,  of  law,  of  the 
salvation  of  individuals  and  of  peoples,  if  his  prescriptions  ought  to  be 
law  by  the  mere  fact  that  they  come  bearing  his  seal,  it  is  evident  that 
no  human  sentiment,  no  demonstration  of  fact,  no  cry  of  conscience,  no 
claim  of  humanity  or  of  patriotism  would  have  a  feather's  weight  against 
the  least  important  decretal. 

The  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  is  something  entirely 
different  from  a  theological  theory.  The  deified  papacy  is  an  actual 
government,  with  its  organs,  its  functionaries,  its  court,  its  magistrates. 

'/&.,  Can.  34  and  Commentary. 

*/&.,  Can.  29,  p.  81;  Pius  IX,  Constitutio    Quanta  cura,  1864. 

*/&.,  Can.  40,  49. 


12  THE  ROOT  OF  THE  DOGMA 

At  the  same  time,  the  Roman  curia  is  raised  above  the  political  order 
and  the  supernatural  and  divine  order,  to  serve  as  the  organ  of  the 
most  limitless  power  which  the  world  has  ever  known. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  same  year  which  saw  the  spiritual 
power  of  the  Popes  raised  to  its  climax  saw  the  end  of  their  temporal 
power.  In  fact,  since  the  sixteenth  century  a  continual  movement 
toward  emancipation  had  been  enfranchising  the  politics,  science,  edu- 
cation, and  civil  life  of  modern  states  from  the  effective  tutelage  of 
the  Church.  In  the  temporal  order  the  claims  of  the  Roman  theocracy 
have  become  almost  inoffensive,  thanks  to  the  material  impotence  of  the 
Pope.  None  the  less  do  they  persist  as  a  moral  and  metaphysical 
authority  whose  sphere  of  action  is  of  immense  range.  In  this  quality 
they  are  open  to  discussion,  and  discussion  is  precisely  their  gravest 
danger.  They  can  neither  refuse  nor  maintain  it.  An  authority  which 
discusses  ceases  to  be  absolute,  since  by  the  mere  fact  of  discussing  and 
advancing  arguments  it  recognises  the  supremacy  of  the  tribunal  of 
reason. 

Such  is  the  contradiction  to  which  the  Vatican  dogma  has  reduced 
Catholic  theology.  It  cannot  undertake  to  prove  the  dogma  without 
by  that  very  act  destroying  it. 

in 

The  Root  of  the  Dogma  and  Its  Constituent  Elements 

CONSIDERED  by  itself,  the  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  a  single  man,  to 
whom  all  others  are  obliged  in  conscience  to  submit  the  direction  of  their 
religious  thought  and  the  conduct  of  their  moral  life,  remains  incom- 
prehensible and  intolerable,  a  defiance  of  common  sense.  But  the  Roman 
Catholic  dogma  is  very  easily  accounted  for  from  the  historic  point 
of  view,  if  it  be  studied  in  its  profound  connection  with  the  earlier  evolu- 
tion of  the  Church.  It  is  its  logical  conclusion  and  fulfilment. 

The  new  dogma  has  its  roots  in  the  Catholic  conception  of  the  Church 


kTHE  ROOT  OF  THE  DOGMA  13 

elf.  It  grows  therefrom  as  the  plant  grows  from  the  seed  sown  in 
e  ground.  The  infallibility  of  the  Pope  is  simply  the  last  expression 
and  perfected  form  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church.  What  would 
an  abstract  infallibility  be,  which  had  not  an  organ  infallible  like  itself, 
by  which  to  exercise  itself  and  rule  in  the  world  of  facts? 

The  infallibility  of  the  Pope  is  derived  in  law  and  in  fact  from  the 
infallibility  of  the  Church. 

In  law,  the  thesis  is  clear;  one  syllogism  suffices  to  establish  it.  If 
the  Council  is  infallible  the  Pope  is  infallible  too,  for  the  Council  has 
so  declared  him.  If  the  Pope  is  not  infallible,  neither  is  the  Ecumenical 
Council,  and  in  this  case  the  authority  of  the  Council  is  destroyed  and 
the  entire  system  of  Catholic  authority  falls  to  pieces. 

Thus  it  becomes  clear  how  the  new  dogma,  impossible  as  it  seemed 
to  be,  so  easily  triumphed  over  its  opponents.  The  opposition  encoun- 
tered at  the  Vatican  and  in  the  Church  was  vain,  because  it  was  without 
principle  or  basis.  Nothing  was  left  for  the  Gallicans  and  liberal 
Catholics  but  arguments  of  procedure.  They  attacked  vices  of  form 
in  the  convocations  or  in  the  deliberations  and  notes  of  the  Council,  feeble 
weapons  which  fell  from  their  trembling  hands  so  soon  as  the  Council 
itself  had  declared  its  proceedings  regular.  Then  those  opposing  were 
reduced  to  the  alternative  of  unconditional  submission  or  persistent  hold- 
ing to  their  individual  opinion,  the  principle  of  Protestantism  and  of  all 
heresy.  It  is  to-day  logically  impossible  to  believe  in  the  infallibility 
of  the  Church  without  believing  in  that  of  its  head,  for  the  first  has 
no  other  real  expression  except  the  second. 

Facts  speak  more  loudly  than  the  law,  and  history  more  cogently 
than  logic. 

From  having  been,  in  the  apostolic  times,  a  pure  democracy,  the 
Church  became  a  great  federation  governed  by  its  bishops;  it  was  an 
aristocratic  system.  Later  the  primacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  made  of 
it  a  monarchy,  at  first  tempered  by  Councils,  then  more  and  more  cen- 
tralised, omnipotent,  and  finally  absolute.  The  same  political  necessity 


U  THE  ROOT  OF  THE  DOGMA 

which  had  raised  the  second-century  bishop  above  the  Council  of  Elders, 
and  made  him  the  symbol  and  representative  of  the  unity  of  the  local 
church,  elevated  the  Bishop  of  Rome  above  the  other  bishops  and  made 
him  the  personification  and  head  of  the  entire  Catholic  body.  The 
person  of  the  Supreme  Pontiff  should  therefore  not  be  considered  as  in 
itself  an  ordinary  and  empirical  individuality;  he  is  essentially  repre- 
sentative and  symbolic,  like  the  person  of  the  priest  at  the  altar  or  in 
the  confessional,  like  the  substance  apparent  in  the  sacrament.  In  him 
a  mystery  takes  place  at  the  moment  when  he  seats  himself  upon  the 
Chair  of  Peter.  He  is  the  concentration  of  the  whole  Church,  as  the 
Church  in  its  turn,  in  its  entire  hierarchy  and  extent,  is  merely  the 
development  in  time  and  space  of  that  which  is  first  of  all  in  the  very 
person  of  her  chief. 

The  Pope  is  the  sun  of  which  bishops  and  priests  are  the  rays  to 
carry  the  light  and  life  to  the  very  extremities  of  the  body  of  the  Church. 
From  thenceforth  the  bishops  could  not  test  the  prerogative  of  the 
papacy  without  destroying  their  own  by  the  same  stroke. 

Thus  the  dogma  of  the  personal  infallibility  of  the  Pope  is  im- 
planted by  all  its  rootlets  in  the  more  general  dogma  of  the  infallibility 
of  the  Church.  It  is  its  necessary  and  final  form.  Without  doubt,  this 
form  annuls  and  supplants  all  preceding  forms  of  authority,  bishops 
or  Councils,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  true  that  it  operated  a  great  change 
and  even  a  revolution  in  the  Church.  But  this  revolution  came  about 
in  the  same  manner  as  those  preceding,  and  succeeded  by  virtue  of  the 
same  logic  and  for  the  same  reasons.  The  principle  remains  the  same 
under  the  changing  variety  of  its  manifestations,  and  the  principle 
resides  in  this,  that  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  can  be  apparent  and 
active  only  by  quitting  the  abstract  sphere  and  becoming,  so  to  speak, 
incarnate  in  a  visible  organ,  priest,  Council  or  Pope.1 

1  Vide  Scherer,  "  Etudes  sur  la  litt.  contemporaine,"  v.  pp.  341-361,  "  la  Papautt, 
1'Eglise  et  la  soci6t6  moderne";  Thomassin,  "  Ancienne  et  nouvelle  discipline  de 
1'Eglise,"  1678-79,  and  "Dissertations  sur  les  conciles";  Bossuet,  "Sermon  sur 
1'unite  de  1'Eglise  et  la  declaration  de  1682";  P.  Gratry,  "Lettres  sur  le  Pape  Hono- 


THE  ROOT  OF  THE  DOGMA  16 

The  notion  of  the  Church,  in  its  turn,  resolves  into  two  elements. 
It  is  constituted  of  a  doctrinal  element,  that  is,  the  tradition  which 
guards  the  supernatural  deposit  of  divine  truth,  and  which  must  at  the 
same  time  justify  the  rights  which  the  Church  arrogates  to  herself  and 
the  absolute  submission  to  her  mysteries  and  precepts  which  she  demands 
from  everyone.  The  other  element,  the  organ  of  action  and  administra- 
tion in  the  Church,  is  the  Episcopate,  without  which  doctrinal  tradition 
would  remain  uncertain  and  vacillating,  like  every  human  tradition. 
Constituted  in  its  essence  by  the  theory  of  the  apostolic  succession,  the 
Episcopate  is  a  living  chain  across  the  centuries,  parallel  to  that  of  the 
doctrinal  tradition,  an  unbroken  link  of  the  Church  of  the  present  to 
its  supernatural  origins,  that  is,  to  the  apostles,  to  Christ,  and  to  God. 

Church,  tradition,  supernatural  priesthood,  episcopate,  papacy, 
such,  in  the  order  of  their  historical  genealogy,  are  the  constituent  ele- 
ments of  the  Catholic  dogma  of  authority.  It  is  possible  to  under- 
stand the  latter  clearly,  and  judge  it  with  all  impartiality,  only  by 
tracing  back  its  long  genesis.  We  shall  see  the  divers  factors  of  which 
it  is  the  fruit  successively  developing  in  history  from  their  most  distant 
origins  to  their  latest  consequences,  beginning  with  that  very  notion  of 
the  Church  which  is  earliest  in  date  and  which  has  engendered  all  the 
others. 

rius,"  1870;  Lord  Acton,  "History  of  the  Vatican  Councils,"  1871;  A.  Harnack, 
"  Dogmengeschichte,"  1890,  iii.  p.  565-653;  Joseph  de  Maistre,  "Du  pape"  ;  "  Acta  ct 
Decreta  Concilii  Vatican!,"  1891  (Collectio  Lacensis  viL). 


CHAPTER  TWO 

THE    CHURCH 
I 

The  Catholic  Notion  of  the  Church 

THE  idea  of  the  Church  is  not  only  the  keystone  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
system,  it  is  Roman  Catholicism  itself;  in  it  the  entire  system  is  con- 
densed and  summed  up. 

The  property  of  the  Catholic  conception  is  to  present  religion  itself 
as  a  supernatural  institution ;  a  sacerdotal  and  hierarchical  institution ; 
that  is,  a  visible  and  permanent  corporation,  charged  by  God  himself 
to  teach  men  what  they  ought  to  believe  and  do,  and  to  save  them. 
The  Church  is  the  ark  of  the  new  covenant  which  Jesus  Christ,  the  new 
Noah,  built  with  his  own  hands,  and  confided  to  an  elect  crew  to  rescue 
the  lost  and  wanderers  of  earth  and  carry  them  safely  to  the  shores  of 
eternity.1 

In  this  dogma  of  the  Church,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  the  human  and 
the  divine,  are  not  only  reconciled,  but  identified  and  made  inseparable. 
The  Church  is  the  historic  and  visible  incarnation  of  saving  truth,  and 
of  the  redemptive  work  of  God.  To  speak  of  an  invisible  church  be- 
comes a  futility ;  it  is  to  say  that  the  incarnation  has  not  taken  place. 

The  most  profound  and  authoritative  Catholic  theologians  of  to-day 
love  to  insist  upon  the  likeness  and  parallel  between  the  incarnation  of 
divinity  in  the  person  of  the  Christ  and  the  incarnation  of  religion 
itself  in  the  body  of  the  Church.  The  second  is  represented  as  the  con- 
sequence of  the  first,  which  thus  perpetuates  itself  through  the  cen- 
turies. The  divine  Word  had  need  of  a  visible  organ  and  a  human 

1  Tertullian. 
16 


THE  CATHOLIC  NOTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  17 

medium  in  order  to  communicate  himself  to  men.  Like  the  Christ,  the 
visible  Church  is  therefore  conceived  and  organised  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  the  bosom  of  humanity.  It  is  still  the  Word  made  flesh;  it  is  the  very 
Son  of  God  continuing,  after  his  resurrection,  to  appear  among  men 
in  a  human  form  which  perpetually  renews  and  rejuvenates  itself.  Like 
the  person  of  Christ,  the  Church  is  at  once  human  and  divine.  In  the 
Church  the  two  notions  communicate  and  interpenetrate  in  the  unity  of 
a  supernatural  life  and  activity.  The  divine  element  is  the  soul  of  the 
Church,  which  vivifies  and  leaves  its  imprint  upon  the  entire  body,  that 
is,  the  human  mass  which  by  itself  is  inert  and  passive. 

From  this  point  of  view  nothing  is  more  logical  or  becomes  more 
natural  than  the  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  or  the  current 
axiom  that  outside  the  Church  there  is  no  salvation.  If  the  Church  is 
nothing  other  than  the  institution  of  salvation,  created  by  God  to  res- 
cue men  from  death  and  damnation,  they  being  all  necessarily  con- 
demned by  original  sin,  it  is  very  clear  that  outside  of  her  none  can 
be  saved.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  Church  is  divine  truth  incar- 
nate, how  can  she  err  ?  To  accuse  the  Church  of  error  is  to  accuse  God 
himself  of  mistake  or  deception;  it  is  to  say  that  the  truth  is  not  the 
truth.1 

There  are  two  definitions  of  the  Catholic  Church,  one  general  and 
one  restricted. 

In  the  general  sense,  the  Church  is  the  visible  society  of  all  who  pro- 
fess its  faith  and  partake  in  its  sacraments,  in  the  obedience  due  to  its 
legitimate  pastors  and  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Pontiff.  But  considered 
in  its  inward  essence  and  in  the  restricted  sense  of  the  word,  the  Church 
is,  above  all  things,  the  sacerdotal  and  hierarchical  order  divinely  estab- 
lished, the  direct  heir  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  apostles.  Was 
it  not,  indeed,  the  apostles  to  whom  the  promises  were  made,  upon  whom 
powers  were  conferred,  to  whom  the  mission  of  teaching  men  and  making 

1 J.  A.  Moehler,  "  Symbolik  oder  Darstellung  der  Dogm.,"  chapter  on  the  Church; 
Perrone,  "  Theol.  dogm.  Trait£  des  lieux  theolog." 


18  THE  CATHOLIC  NOTION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

them  holy  was  confided,  as  is  the  proper  task  and  end  of  the  Church? 
There  are,  then,  actually  two  Churches  in  the  Church ;  the  one  teaching 
and  governing,  the  other  taught  and  governed;  one  active,  the  other 
passive.  It  is  the  essential  distinction  between  cleric  and  layman.1 

There  is  this  difference  between  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  con- 
ceptions of  the  Church,  that  according  to  the  latter  inward  virtues,  such 
as  the  sincerity  of  faith  and  the  reality  of  conversion,  are  required  in 
order  to  become  members  of  the  true  Church  of  Christ,  while  Catholic 
theologians  simply  require  external  marks,  like  the  profession  of  the 
true  faith  and  participation  in  the  sacraments,  which  are  of  a  nature 
to  be  apprehended  by  the  senses.  The  reason  for  this  is  simple:  if 
inward  virtues  are  required,  they  being  invisible  and  always  uncertain, 
it  is  impossible  to  know  who  are  the  true  members  of  the  Church,  nor, 
consequently,  where  is  the  true  Church.  We  necessarily  reach  the  dis- 
tinction made  by  heretics  between  the  visible  Church,  which  may  be 
false  and  faithless,  and  the  true  Church,  which  would  be  invisible.  As 
it  is  above  all  things  important  that  there  should  be  neither  doubt  nor 
uncertainty  as  to  the  place  in  which,  and  the  persons  in  whom,  the  true 
Church  resides,  it  is  of  the  highest  necessity  to  require,  for  their  recog- 
nition, nothing  invisible  or  occult,  and  consequently  nothing  purely 
spiritual  and  moral. 

"  The  Church,"  says  Bellarmin,  "  is  an  organised  social  body  as 
visible  and  palpable  as  the  Roman  people,  the  Republic  of  Venice,  or  the 
Kingdom  of  France."  It  is  a  true  state,  to  which  one  belongs,  as  to  any 
other,  by  an  external  and  legal  tie. 

The  Church,  like  every  political  state,  includes  two  sorts  of  mem- 
bers, the  good  and  the  evil,  docile  subjects  and  those  rebellious  or  im- 
pious.2 Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  belongs  to  the  heads  and  possessors  of 
legitimate  authority  to  preserve  the  good  and  to  subdue  the  evil  by 
exhortations,  laws,  and  chastisements. 

As  political  states  are  recruited  by  birth,  so  the  Church  is  recruited 
lPerrone,  ib.  *  Roman  Catechism,!.  10,  6. 


THE  CATHOLIC  NOTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  19 

by  baptism.  The  act  of  baptism  is  the  external  proof  that  one  legiti- 
mately belongs  to  it.  A  baptised  person  may  be  unbelieving  or  rebel- 
lious ;  he  remains  none  the  less  the  subject  of  the  Church,  and  the  Church 
has  always  the  right  to  claim  him. 

This  theory  rests  upon  the  initial  fact  of  a  supernatural  institution. 
The  Church  is  not  the  effect  of  the  psychological  and  social  law  which 
decrees  that  every  religion,  since  it  contains  an  eminent  social  principle, 
shall  create  a  religious  society  by  its  own  expansion.  No,  the  Church 
is  a  creation  of  God.  How,  without  a  miracle,  should  the  first  realisa- 
tion of  the  Christian  idea  have  been  adequate  to  this  principle?  Founded 
upon  an  eternal  decree,  the  Church  instituted  by  Christ  is  to  all  its  mem- 
bers pre-existent.  It  is  a  metaphysical  entity  descended  from  heaven  in 
historic  time,  prepared  for  and  prefigured  in  the  Old  Covenant,  reigning 
sovereign  in  the  New.  Such  is  the  doctrine  of  Cyprian,  Augustine, 
Bossuet,  and  Leo  XIII. 

But  the  modern  historian  never  presupposes  a  miracle.  However 
imposing  may  be  the  destinies  of  the  Church,  or  its  still  more  lofty 
claims,  its  birth,  its  development,  its  triumphs,  and  its  reverses  are  none 
the  less  a  series  of  phenomena,  interlinked  and  conditioned  by  the  cir- 
cumstances of  time  and  place,  like  all  other  historic  phenomena.  If 
miracle  is  found  neither  in  the  circumstances  nor  the  progress  of  this 
history,  in  which  have  met  and  mingled  all  the  social  forces  of  two  thou- 
sand years,  why  should  it  have  occurred  in  its  beginning?  Why  should 
not  the  fortunes  of  the  Rome  of  the  Popes  be  naturally  explicable  by 
a  concurrence  of  causes  more  numerous  indeed,  but  not  less  discernible, 
than  the  fortunes  of  the  Rome  of  the  consuls  and  Caesars  ? 

All  the  great  empires,  all  the  great  societies  of  former  days,  were 
equally  attributed  to  divine  origin.  Historical  criticism  has  always 
been  able  to  trace,  through  the  golden  haze  of  legend,  the  ordinary 
course  of  human  societies,  everywhere  marked  by  inevitable  struggles 
and  sorrows.  The  fables  woven  around  the  cradle  of  the  papacy  are  of 
no  greater  historic  value  for  being  of  another  order  than  those  which 


20  THE  CATHOLIC  NOTION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

surrounded  that  of  Romulus  with  a  divine  nimbus.  We  can  mark  the 
date  of  their  appearance  in  history.  They  go  no  farther  back  than  the 
third  century. 

It  was  only  after  the  Church  had  constituted  herself  an  infallible 
oracle  and  an  organised  political  power,  that  anyone  dreamed  of  justify- 
ing in  theory  that  which  had  triumphed  in  fact.  From  one  end  of  the 
history  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  the  other  we  can  note  this  circum- 
stance. Dogma  never  consecrates  anything  that  has  not  already  passed 
into  practice  for  a  century  or  two.  The  Episcopal  power  had  long 
prevailed  in  the  whole  Church  before  Cyprian  made  it  the  dogmatic 
theory.  The  Immaculate  Conception  of  Mary,  the  personal  infallibility 
of  the  Pope,  had  already  been  long  triumphant  when  Pius  IX  made 
dogmas  of  these  beliefs.  Let  us  then  establish  the  true  relations:  it  is 
not  the  dogmatic  and  supernatural  theory  of  the  Church  which  makes 
its  strength,  it  is  the  strength  and  victory  of  the  Church  which  leads 
to  the  theory.  Therefore,  the  strength  and  the  victory  came  from  else- 
where and  should  be  otherwise  explained. 

Having  now  been  studied  for  nearly  a  century  by  the  most  impar- 
tial and  rigorous  historic  method,  the  problem  of  the  historic  origin 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  theory  which  consecrates  its 
claims  has  been  illuminated  by  the  brightest  possible  light.  Deeply 
rooted  in  the  Hebraic  religion,  germinating  in  the  earliest  Christian 
communities,  developed  and  gradually  prepared  by  a  great  variety  of 
conflicts  and  a  continuous  succession  of  efforts,  the  Catholic  notion  of 
the  Church  first  appears  distinct  and  ready  to  be  established  in  triumph 
only  in  the  time  of  Irenaeus,  Clement,  Tertullian,  and  especially  of 
Cyprian.  Passing  from  the  second  century  to  the  third,  the  sensation 
is  as  if  one  passed  from  one  world  to  another.  A  revolution  has  taken 
place.  Behind  the  Catholic  form  of  Christianity  there  are  more  ancient 
forms  not  difficult  to  discern,  which  remain  like  the  landmarks  of  a  road 
once  followed,  and  until  our  own  days  almost  forgotten. 


THE  MESSIANIC  KINGDOM  AND  THE  CHURCH        21 

II 

The  Messianic  Kingdom  and  the  Church 

THE  original  germ  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  Messianic  idea  of  the 
**  Kingdom  of  God  "  or  "  of  Heaven."  It  claims  to  be  this  very  king- 
dom, the  object  of  the  hopes  and  prayers  of  the  prophets  and  seers  of 
Israel.  And  yet  how  different  are  the  two  conceptions !  The  Kingdom 
of  Heaven,  as  its  name  indicates,  was  to  come  from  heaven  at  the  end 
of  time.  Men  were  expecting,  at  no  long  delay,  the  supreme  catas- 
trophe which  should  introduce  the  judgment  of  God,  reward  each  man 
according  to  his  works,  put  an  end  to  the  reign  of  the  powers  of  evil, 
and  inaugurate  that  of  righteousness  and  peace.1 

This  is  what  John  the  Baptist  proclaimed  in  his  energetic  and 
familiar  figures  of  speech :  "  The  axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  trees, 
therefore  every  tree  which  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down 
and  cast  into  the  fire."  2  Jesus  intended  nothing  else  when,  taking  up 
the  same  theme,  he  said :  "  The  time  is  fulfilled  and  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  at  hand ;  repent  ye  and  believe  the  gospel."  3 

What  relation  is  there  between  this  apocalyptic  and  transcendent 
conception  and  the  idea  of  a  religious  society  politically  organised, 
living  in  history  side  by  side  with  terrestrial  powers,  having  like  them 
its  chiefs,  its  laws,  interests,  diplomacy ;  treating  with  them  or  battling 
against  them  to  maintain  and  extend  its  hard-won  privileges  and  con- 
quests? How,  and  by  what  succession  of  changes  in  facts  and  ideas, 
did  the  Jewish  Messianic  idea  become  the  Catholic  conception  of  the 
Church  in  the  third  century?  These  are  the  precise  terms  of  the  prob- 
lem which  the  origins  of  Christianity  set  before  the  historian  and  the 
thinker. 

1  Daniel   vii.  13,  14,  and  all  Jewish  and  Christian  apocalyptic. 

'Matt,    iii.  10. 

'Mark  i.  15.  [The  French  translation  is  more  vigorous:  "Repent,  for  the  measure 
of  the  time  is  full!  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  the  door;  receive  the  good  news  in 
faith.— Trans.] 


22       THE  MESSIANIC  KINGDOM  AND  THE  CHURCH 

When  we  attribute  to  Jesus  this  Catholic  conception  of  the  Church, 
or  simply  the  intention  of  founding  something  analagous  to  it,  we  fall 
into  the  most  artless  of  anachronisms.  Not  only  he  did  not  will  this 
Church ;  he  could  not  even  have  foreseen  it,  for  the  good  reason  that  he 
thought  himself  to  have  come  in  the  last  days  of  the  world,  and  all  this 
historic  development  of  Christianity  was  outside  of  his  Messianic 
horizon. 

Since  the  appearance  of  the  book  of  Daniel  all  pious  souls  in  Israel 
had  believed  themselves  to  be  living  in  the  last  period  of  history.  The 
preaching  of  the  Baptist  had  vivified  this  belief  throughout  all  Palestine. 
Jesus  assuredly  shared  it.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  for  whose  advent  he 
undertook  to  prepare,  because  he  expected  it  shortly  to  appear,  was  not 
a  Church  organised  and  established  on  earth,  but  the  great  revolution 
predicted  by  the  prophets  and  described  in  the  apocalypses,  the  striking 
manifestation  of  the  righteousness  and  faithfulness  of  God.  No  doubt 
he  knew  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour  of  this  event,  and,  unlike  the 
makers  of  apocalypses,  he  attempted  no  illusory  calculations ;  but  neither 
did  he  doubt  that  the  catastrophe  of  the  drama  in  which  he  was  engaged 
was  imminent.  "  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand,"  he  said ;  "  its 
era  has  already  risen  in  the  hearts  of  men.  This  generation  shall  not 
pass  away  until  the  divine  trump  shall  have  sounded."  *  This  being  the 
case,  what  interest  could  he  have  in  organising  a  social  institution  for 
a  long  future? 

The  apostles  whom  he  commissioned  were  neither  priests  nor  eccle- 
siastical functionaries ;  they  were  simple  messengers,  bearers  of  the  good 
tidings  of  the  Kingdom.  They  were  not  to  have  finished  visiting  the 
cities  of  Israel  before  the  Son  of  Man  should  appear.2  In  the  mean- 
time, Jesus  simply  sought  to  group  around  himself  the  elect  of  God, 
obscure,  scattered,  and  poor,  to  await  with  them  the  signal  which  the 
Father  would  give.  Therefore  he  never  had  the  idea  of  any  other 
social  bond  than  their  attachment  to  his  person,  any  other  organisation 
1  Appendix  VIII.  *Matt.  x.  23. 


THE  MESSIANIC  KINGDOM  AND  THE  CHURCH        23 

;han  their  mutual  good  will,  any  other  hierarchy  than  the  reversed 
hierarchy  of  the  greatest  humility  and  the  most  self -forgetful  love,  most 
devoted  to  the  welfare  of  others.1 

Assuredly  his  work  had  the  future  for  its  own,  and  was  bound  to 
conquer  the  world,  because  he  laid  its  groundwork  in  the  deep  and  im- 
mutable foundation  of  the  human  conscience.  The  words  of  life  which, 
under  this  temporary  Messianic  form,  he  implanted  in  souls  could  not 
but  fructify  in  history  in  every  possible  way.  But  the  perspective  of 
centuries  to  come  was  closed  to  him.  He  walked  by  faith  in  the  love 
and  righteousness  of  the  Father,  and  not  by  sight,  and  none  may  say 
that  his  faith  was  deceived.  None  the  less  does  it  remain  a  fact  that 
no  one  would  have  been  more  astonished  and  scandalised  than  he,  had  he 
been  able  to  foresee  all  that  men  bearing  his  name,  and  making  use  of 
his  authority,  were  to  present  to  the  world  as  his  work  or  his  thought.2 

In  the  direction  of  the  future  the  horizon  was  still  less  open  to 
the  gaze  of  the  apostles  and  the  first  generation  of  Christians.  Per- 
suaded that  the  Messiah  had  come,  they  could  not  imagine  that  the 
world  would  last  long.  Without  a  single  exception  they  awaited  from 
day  to  day  the  triumphant  return  of  their  Master  upon  the  clouds  of 
heaven.  The  whole  Apocalypse  of  St.  John  is  built  upon  this  hope. 
Paul  was  no  exception.  Almost  to  the  close  of  his  career  he  believed 
that  he  should  see  before  death  this  glorious  revolution  and  the  resur- 
rection of  the  dead.  Such  an  absorbing  vision  filled  the  believers  with 
ardent  enthusiasm,  detached  them  from  the  earth,  took  away  all  anxiety 
for  the  future.  They  lived  in  a  fever  of  exaltation.  The  necessities 
of  common  life,  like  its  laws,  seemed  to  them  abolished.3 

The  picture  of  the  first  Christian  community  of  Corinth  which  we 
find  in  the  letters  of  Paul,  not  less  than  that  of  the  Christians  of  Jerusa- 
lem in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  give  an  exact  idea  of  this  first  period 
of  individual  inspiration  and  free  expression.  The  elect  lived  in  the 
age  as  not  belonging  to  it.  They  considered  themselves  as  strangers 
•Matt,  xxiii.  8-12;  Mark,  x.  42-45.  » Appendix  IX.  "Appendix  X. 


24       THE  MESSIANIC  KINGDOM  AND  THE  CHURCH 

and  travellers,  who  pass  along  without  thinking  of  any  enduring  estab- 
lishment. The  individual  gifts  (charisms)  apportioned  by  the  Spirit 
to  divers  members  of  the  community  met  all  needs.  The  Spirit,  acting 
in  each  believer,  thus  determined  vocations,  and  portioned  out  to  one 
and  another,  according  to  the  faculties  or  the  zeal  of  each,  ministries 
and  offices  which  appear  to  have  been  provisional.1 

But  with  the  passage  of  time  things  were  certain  to  change.  These 
embryos  of  organisms,  spontaneously  opening  to  the  light  in  divers 
forms,  could  not  but  determine  and  assert  themselves.  The  charism  of 
the  Spirit  was  destined  soon  to  become  a  permanent  ecclesiastical  func- 
tion. Above  or  side  by  side  with  the  apostles,  prophets,  and  teachers 
who  held  their  vocation  directly  from  God  alone,  and  who  were  essentially 
itinerants,  each  community  naturally  drew  from  its  own  body  its  settled 
ministers,  elders,  bishops,  and  deacons  charged  with  the  general  interests 
of  the  community,  with  the  maintenance  of  discipline  and  the  distribu- 
tion of  alms.  Thus  came  into  being  and  grew  up  side  by  side  with 
the  free  and  nomad  apostolate  a  settled  ecclesiastical  functionality,  which 
was  destined  little  by  little  to  replace  and  absorb  it.  The  progress  of 
this  absorption  marks  the  progress  of  the  Catholic  conception  of  the 
Church,  and  this  became  perfected  when,  in  virtue  of  the  theory  of 
apostolic  succession,  divine  inspiration  and  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction 
were  held  to  be  absolutely  coincident.2 

The  first  Christian  communities,  composed  at  first  of  members  equal 
among  themselves  and  distinguished  solely  by  varieties  in  the  gifts  of 
the  Spirit,  became  in  time  organised  bodies,  veritable  churches,  which 
at  first  developed  and  took  on  different  physiognomies  according  to  the 
diversities  of  their  geographical  and  social  surroundings.  In  Palestine 
and  beyond  the  Jordan  the  Christian  community  was  modelled  upon  the 
Jewish  synagogue,  and  apparently  bore  the  same  Aramaean  name.  In 

1 1  Cor.  xii.,  xiv.;  Rom.  xii.  3-9. 

JThis  evolution,  which  appears  as  accomplished* in  the  epistles  called  "Pastoral" 
and  in  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,  was  not  yet  universal  in  the  time  of  the  "  Teaching  of 
the  Apostles."  See  "  Teaching  of  the  Apostles,"  xii.,  xiii.,  xiv.,  xv. 


THE  MESSIANIC  KINGDOM  AND  THE  CHURCH        25 

the  Occident  it  appears  to  have  reproduced  the  form  of  pagan  colleges 
or  associations,  so  numerous  in  Greek  cities  at  that  epoch. 

In  all  this  there  is  neither  divine  institution  nor  miracle  of  any  sort, 
but  simply  the  play  and  effect  of  general  laws  which  rule  social  phe- 
nomena of  this  order.  It  may  all  be  luminously  explained  in  each  region 
of  the  empire  by  the  action  of  natural  causes  which  come  under  the 
historian's  observation. 

Yet  the  evolution  of  every  organism  is  governed  by  a  directing  idea, 
which  is  as  its  perfect  latent  soul.  This  idea  is  no  more  wanting  here 
than  elsewhere.  It  appears  in  the  very  earliest  beginning. 

The  Christian  communities  scattered  through  the  empire  entertained 
frequent  relations  with  one  another;  they  received  the  visits  and  teach- 
ings of  the  same  gospel  messengers,  or  date  back  to  the  same  apostles. 
All  the  communities  founded  by  Paul,  for  example,  had  very  close  family 
ties.  They  were  the  children  of  the  same  father.  It  is  therefore  nat- 
ural that  they  should  have  had  from  the  beginning  a  very  vivid  con- 
sciousness of  their  spiritual  unity,  and  that  above  the  particular  and 
local  churches  should  have  appeared,  precisely  as  in  the  letters  of  the 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  the  idea  of  The  Church  of  God  or  of  Christ, 
one  and  universal.  The  principle  of  unity  was  found  in  this,  that  Chris- 
tians who  are  united  to  Christ  live  by  the  same  moral  life,  and  are  con- 
scious of  being  in  the  same  religious  relation  to  God,  and  animated  by 
the  same  spirit  and  the  same  hope  of  the  eternal  life  upon  which  they 
are  to  enter.  The  Apostle  Paul  therefore  conceives  of  the  Church  of 
the  saints  and  the  elect  as  an  organ  of  the  Christ,  his  very  body,  in 
which  the  Christ,  who  is  its  head,  manifests  all  the  virtues  of  his  spirit 
and  sheds  forth  the  plenitude  of  his  divine  riches.  Unity,  inward  har- 
mony, the  communion  of  saints ;  here  already  is  distinctly  set  forth  the 
essential  character  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  But  this  unity,  in  which 
all  natural  and  social  diversities  or  oppositions  are  effaced,  is  not  con- 
ceived as  an  exterior  and  visible  unity ;  it  is  not  founded  upon  unity  of 
government,  upon  rites  or  even  upon  dogmas;  it  is  entirely  moral,  and 


26        THE  MESSIANIC  KINGDOM  AND  THE  CHURCH 

is  born  of  the  communion  of  the  Spirit;  it  is  practically  realised  and 
maintained  by  mutual  love.  Again,  the  Church  is  represented  as  the 
pure  and  holy  bride  of  the  Messiah ;  she  awaits  her  spouse,  and  prepares 
herself  to  go  forth  to  meet  him  when  he  shall  descend  from  heaven  upon 
the  clouds,  to  inaugurate  the  reign  of  God.  This  Paulinian  notion  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  like  all  the  Apostle's  theology,  is  essentially  idealist 
and  transcendent.  Amidst  the  sorrows  and  struggles  of  the  present  age, 
it  is  the  grouping  of  the  holy  and  elect;  it  is  the  forming  of  the  true 
people  Israel,  heir  of  the  ancient  promises,  who  are  to  appear  and  hold 
themselves  in  prayer  and  watchfulness  during  the  short  interval  of  time 
which  separates  the  present  from  the  approaching  hour  when  their  King 
shall  come.1 

None  the  less  we  must  recognise  here  the  great  idea  which  was  to 
preside  over  the  evolution  of  the  Christian  communities  and  lead  through 
them  to  the  constitution  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Every  religious  and 
moral  idea  tends  to  translate  itself  to  those  outside,  and  to  realise  itself, 
in  facts.  The  ideal  unity  of  the  Church  would  tend  to  become  a  visible 
reality  by  unity  of  government,  worship,  and  discipline.  Just  as  indi- 
vidual believers  felt  the  imperious  desire  of  grouping  themselves,  and 
uniting  with  one  another,  so  the  various  sections  of  Apostolic  Chris- 
tianity, very  diverse  in  origin,  local  churches  dispersed  throughout  the 
empire,  desired  to  draw  near  one  another,  to  affirm  their  solidarity  by 
an  even  closer  federation  and  subordination  which  constantly  became 
more  clearly  defined.2 

Two  necessary  conditions  were  still  lacking.  It  was  essential  first 
that  apostolic  Christianity  should  find  a  fixed  centre  around  which  indi- 
vidual churches  might  be  grouped.  Next  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  come  to  the  point  of  developing  from  within  themselves  a  dog- 
matic rule  and  a  principle  of  authority  which  would  permit  this  centre 
to  subdue  all  heresies  and  oppositions.  In  the  very  beginning  of  the 
century  the  future  centre  of  the  Catholic  Church  became  apparent,  and 

episcopal  authority  was  constituted. 

1  Appendix  XI.  *  Appendix  XII. 


GILECO-ROMAN  BASIS  OF  CATHOLIC  CHURCH        27 

III 

The  Grceco-Roman  Basis  of  the  Catholic  Church 

IN  the  very  beginning  two  events  occurred  to  determine  the  course  of 
the  history  of  Christianity :  the  great  success  of  the  Paulinian  missions 
in  the  territories  of  the  empire,  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and 
the  Jewish  nation  in  the  year  70.  By  this  event  the  centre  of  gravity 
of  infant  Christianity  was  forever  displaced.  From  the  Orient  it  passed 
to  the  Occident,  and  from  Jerusalem  to  Rome.  The  primitive  Judaeo- 
Christian  group  declined,  the  pagano-Christian  ever  more  and  more 
gained  the  ascendant. 

The  first  representatives  of  these  two  groups  were  Paul  of  Tarsus 
and  James,  the  brother  of  Jesus.  Far  from  being  superior  to  them  in 
authority,  Peter  appears  relatively  effaced  between  these  two  champions 
of  contrary  tendencies,  which  at  that  time  were  rival  forces  in  the 
churches.  James  was  not  an  apostle;  he  was  something  better,  he  was 
the  brother  of  Christ,  and  succeeded  him  by  a  sort  of  hereditary  right, 
founded  on  kinship  in  blood  and  Davidic  descent.  Until  his  death  he  was 
the  true  lieutenant,  the  first  vicar  of  the  Messiah,  to  whom  Peter  and 
the  others  were  subordinated.  If  Palestinian  Christianity  had  lived 
and  extended  itself  toward  the  Orient,  it  would  have  formed  and  trans- 
mitted, coming  from  this  source,  a  sort  of  Christian  caliphate  of  another 
nature  from  that  which  was  later  established  in  Rome.1 

James,  surnamed  the  Rampart  of  his  people,  represented  the  past — 
Jewish  particularism,  ritual  piety.  Paul  represented  the  moral  prin- 
ciple of  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  the  religion  of  inward  faith  and  of  liberty. 
The  future  could  not  long  remain  uncertain.  The  tragic  events  of  the 
year  70,  which  gave  a  fatal  blow  to  the  dreams  of  Jewish  Messianism, 
put  Paul  in  the  right  and  consecrated  the  results  of  his  work. 

The  struggle  had  been  intense.     The  letters  of  Paul  to  the  Christians 

of  Galatia,  Corinth,  and  Rome  were  its  fruit  and  remain  its  monument. 

'Appendix  XIII. 


28        GR^CO-ROMAN  BASIS  OF  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

When  Paul  returned  from  his  distant  journeys  he  had  much  difficulty 
in  winning  from  Jerusalem  the  acceptance  of  these  new  children  whicli 
were  not  her  issue,  and  whose  growing  numbers  gave  the  Christian  Jews 
more  fear  and  embarrassment  than  pleasure.  The  partisans  of  James 
had  only  one  anxiety,  to  maintain  the  national  privileges  of  the  older 
brothers,  the  People  Israel  according  to  the  flesh;  while  the  Apostle  to 
the  Gentiles,  overthrowing  all  literal  arguments,  proved  the  invincible 
incredulity  of  the  mass  of  Jewish  people,  and  hailed  in  these  new  Gentile 
communities  the  Israel  according  to  the  spirit,  and  the  true  inheritors 
of  the  promises  made  to  Abraham.1  Paul  was  stigmatised  as  a  false 
apostle,  an  apostate,  an  enemy  of  Christ,  a  propagator  of  iniquity.  His 
reply  to  his  adversaries  was  in  no  gentle  tone.  Reading  with  enlight- 
ened eyes  his  letter  to  the  Galatians  and  the  second  to  the  Corinthians, 
especially  his  visit  to  the  apostles,  pillars  of  Jerusalem,  and  his  quarrel 
with  Peter  at  Antioch,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  anachronisms  they  commit, 
and  with  what  fictions  they  lull  themselves,  who  represent  these  first 
Christian  communities  as  organised  in  the  form  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
under  the  official  rule  of  St.  Peter.2  None  the  less  does  this  crisis  mark 
the  first  step  along  a  new  way.  A  venturesome  pilot  had  cut  the  cables 
which  still  held  the  vessel  to  the  native  shore,  and  had  turned  its  prow 
to  the  open  waters  of  Greek  and  Roman  civilisation. 

It  has  been  observed  that  Paul  appears  to  have  proceeded  method- 
ically to  the  conquest  of  the  empire;  he  had  gone  over  it,  province  by 
province,  in  such  manner  that  the  political  divisions  virtually  became 
ecclesiastical  circumscriptions:  Syria,  Cilicia,  Galatia,  Asia,  Macedonia, 
Achaia,  Italy,  Gaul,  Spain.  The  new  Christianity  was  flowing  into 
the  imperial  organism  as  into  a  mould,  whose  ideal  of  unity  and  hierarchi- 
cal forms  would  survive  in  the  Church,  even  when  the  political  shell 
should  have  fallen  to  pieces  under  the  hammer  of  the  barbarians. 

'Acts  xxi.  18ff.;  Gal.  iii.,  iv.,  especially  the  allegory  of  Sarai  and  Hagar,  1.  Cor. 
x.  1-10;  Rom.  iv.,  etc. 
1  Appendix  XIV. 


GILECO-ROMAN  BASIS  OF  CATHOLIC  CHURCH         29 

At  the  close  of  the  great  apostle's  life,  and  on  the  eve  of  the  catas- 
trophe of  the  Jewish  war,  the  equilibrium  between  the  Jewish  and  pagan 
elements  in  Christianity  had  been  definitely  destroyed.  The  Jewish 
people,  having  continued  in  unbelief,  seemed  condemned  by  a  decree  of 
divine  justice.  Taking  refuge  beyond  the  Jordan,  the  fragments  of 
the  first  Jewish  Christian  communities  vegetated,  with  no  contact  with 
the  mass  of  Christianity,  and  remaining  unprogressive  while  all  around 
them  was  in  process  of  modification,  they  were  to  end  by  appearing  as 
a  heretic  sect  under  their  old  name  of  Nazarenes.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
faithful  to  the  spirit  and  tradition  of  James  and  other  members  of  the 
family  of  Jesus,  they  alone  represented  primitive  orthodoxy.  But  thus 
go  the  things  of  the  world.  Orthodoxy  is  always  the  doctrine  officially 
consecrated  by  success. 

Recruited  especially  in  that  world  of  proselytes  which  gravitated  to 
the  synagogues,  the  Gentile-Christian  body,  which  was  called  the  "  great 
Church,"  followed  a  middle  path  between  the  theology  of  Paul,  which  they 
were  incapable  of  comprehending,  and  the  pretensions  and  rites  of  the 
Judaisers,  which  they  could  not  tolerate.  Thus  was  formed  a  sort  of 
elementary  and  neutral  doctrine,  half  Greek  rational  wisdom  and  half 
Israelitish  tradition.  Such  was  the  theology  of  the  writers  of  the  transi- 
tion period,  who  succeeded  the  apostles  and  are  called  the  Apostolic 
Fathers.  It  was  the  substructure  of  Catholic  orthodoxy. 

In  the  eyes  of  Jesus,  of  Paul  and  the  other  apostles,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment had  the  absolute  character  of  a  divine  revelation.  It  was  also  the 
first  and  for  a  long  time  the  only  written  authority.  But  while  it  was 
venerated  by  them  as  much  as  by  the  Jews,  it  was  necessarily  coming 
to  be  otherwise  interpreted.  How  make  the  partition  between  that  which 
was  conformable  to  the  gospel  and  that  which  was  contrary  to  it,  between 
the  ceremonial  part  actually  abolished  and  the  persistent  moral  part! 
The  allegorical  exegesis  taught  by  Philo  and  already  practised  by  Paul 
came  to  the  aid  of  the  liberty  of  faith.  Of  the  Old  Testament  they 
retained  these  three  things:  faith  in  one  God,  creator  of  heaven  and 


30         GR^ECO-ROMAN  BASIS  OF  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

earth,  the  moral  law  of  the  Decalogue,  and  the  Messianic  prophecies  by 
which  they  proved  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour 
of  the  world.  The  rest  was  interpreted  symbolically,  as  figures  of  the 
new  priesthood,  which,  under  cover  of  this  venerable  authority,  was 
already  being  installed  in  the  churches  of  the  second  century.1 

Jerusalem  being  destroyed,  this  Graeco-Roman  Christianity  sought 
a  new  centre  around  which  to  group  itself ;  it  had  not  long  to  hesitate. 
The  great  churches  of  Antioch,  Ephesus,  and  Alexandria  found  a  sort 
of  equilibrium,  and  exercised  authority  only  over  the  communities  of 
their  several  regions.  One  city  alone  was  lifted  above  all  the  others 
and  enjoyed  universal  importance.  Rome  was  always  the  eternal  and 
the  sacred  city.  Twice  she  was  to  inherit  the  succession  of  the  world. 
The  capital  of  the  empire  was  marked  in  advance  to  become  the  capital 
of  Christianity.  There  was  no  miracle  in  this;  it  was  a  fact  of  the 
social  order,  which  so  well  answered  to  the  historic  conditions  of  the  time 
that  the  real  miracle  would  have  been  if  it  had  turned  out  otherwise. 

In  the  formation  of  the  Catholic  Church  the  action  of  the  Roman 
genius  was  decisive.  It  first  manifested  itself  toward  the  close  of  the 
first  century;  and  from  this  moment  it  never  ceased  to  be  potent.  In 
the  new  function  it  was  faithful  to  its  old  spirit.  It  left  to  others  the 
charge  and  the  glory  of  being  active  in  philosophic  science  or  by  the 
ardour  of  faith.  Alexandria  might  be  more  learned,  Ephesus  more  mys- 
tical. Its  lot  was  administration,  the  maintenance  of  the  rule,  the  incli- 
nation for,  and  the  spirit  of,  government.  In  the  name  of  the  practical 
interest  of  unity  and  good  order  it  intervened  everywhere  between  the 
spontaneity  of  liberty  and  individual  inspiration.  It  gave  no  orders 
as  yet,  simply  fraternal  counsels,  but  the  counsels  naturally  had  all  the 
weight  which  could  be  given  by  the  prestige  of  Rome,  the  strength  and 
the  wealth  of  its  community,  and  the  double  legend  of  St.  Peter's  chair 
and  his  martyrdom. 

All  this  is  shown  in  the  letter  which  the  Church  of  Rome  addressed 
to  that  of  Corinth  in  the  last  period  of  Domitian's  reign.  The  letter 

» Appendix  XV. 


GR^ECO-ROMAN  BASIS  OF  CATHOLIC  CHURCH         31 

is  collective  and  anonymous.  At  the  time  there  was  still  no  more  a 
single  bishop  at  Rome  than  at  Corinth.  The  Roman  community  says 
nothing  in  the  name  of  an  official  primacy  or  supremacy  which  it  does 
not  possess,  but  speaks  in  the  name  of  the  fraternal  solidarity  which 
permitted  no  one  of  the  churches  of  the  time  to  remain  indifferent  to  the 
troubles  and  sorrows  of  the  others,  especially  when  they  solicited  help 
or  counsel.  But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  Roman  genius  makes 
itself  seen,  even  in  this  first  tentative. 

A  part  of  the  Corinthian  Church,  the  younger  and  the  more  volatile, 
had  uprisen  against  the  "  elders,"  who  had  long  been  in  charge,  and  had 
even  deposed  some  of  them.  Rome,  without  hesitation,  took  sides  against 
the  revolutionists  and  in  favour  of  the  representatives  of  established 
authority,  for  the  tradition  of  ecclesiastical  power,  for  the  subordination 
of  the  simple  believer  to  the  heads  who  are  the  true  priests  of  God, 
Levites,  and  sacrificers  of  the  new  covenant.  The  unity  necessary  to 
realise  in  the  Church  is  that  of  the  empire,  and  more  practically  that 
which  by  the  hierarchy  and  lay  discipline  reigns  in  the  Roman  army, 
the  political  and  military  ideal  from  which  Rome  thenceforth  never 
departed.1 

The  Old  Testament  offered  examples  and  figures  which  easily  became 
rules.  The  Levitical  ceremonial,  abolished  in  the  substance  of  its  rites, 
had  sacred  forms  which  persisted  in  the  imagination  as  divine  types  upon 
which  Christian  worship  ought  to  be  modelled.  Christians  continued  to 
conceive  of  their  worship  as  a  sacrifice,  their  prayers  and  the  Eucharist 
as  offerings,  and  the  communion  table  as  an  altar.2  Thus  was  born 
unto  Christianity  the  idea  of  a  new  priesthood  instituted  by  God  himself, 
to  instruct,  sanctify,  and  save  mankind.  The  oversight  of  so  high  a 
mission  called  for  an  equal  power.  Little  by  little  arose  the  image  of 
a  new  theocracy,  destined  to  replace  the  Mosaic  theocracy,  and  to  be 

Element  of  Rome,  1.  Cor.  40,  where  for  the  first  time  appears  the  word  "laic," 
as  opposed  to  "  priest,"  44  : 37   n. 

*/&.,  36,  40;  42;  Epist.  to  Heb.  x.,  xvii.,  10,  etc. 


32  THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES 

extended  over  the  whole  earth.  This  germ  of  theocracy  is  thus  found 
from  its  very  origin  inherent  in  the  very  idea  of  the  Church.  It  was 
to  go  on  developing,  and  end  by  subordinating  all  the  rest  to  itself. 

About  this  time  appeared  for  the  first  time  the  name  Catholic  Church, 
which  was  destined  to  so  great  a  fortune.  It  was  not  yet  a  general 
expression,  designating  "  the  great  church,"  the  whole  community  of 
believers,  in  opposition  to  the  sects,  heresies,  particular  schools  which 
were  multiplying  on  all  sides.1  To  make  a  strongly  organised  society 
out  of  this  ill-defined  mass,  two  elements  were  still  necessary;  a  single, 
strong  rule  of  faith,  given  and  everywhere  accepted  as  the  expression 
of  the  apostolic  tradition,  and  an  episcopal  government,  sufficiently  well 
established  and  sufficiently  powerful  to  reduce  the  whole  to  unity  and 
obedience.  The  double  crisis  of  Gnosticism  and  Montanism  which  broke 
forth  between  130  and  150  A.  D.,  and  lasted  nearly  a  century,  furnished 
both. 

IV 

The  Church  and  Heresies 

HISTORY  goes  on  without  repeating  itself.  There  are  many  essential 
differences  between  the  intestine  conflicts  which  agitated  the  Church  in 
the  times  of  James  and  Paul,  and  those  which,  a  century  later,  were 
stirred  up  by  the  Gnostic  doctors  and  the  prophets  of  Montanism. 
Nevertheless,  the  latter  are  the  successors  and  logical  development  of  the 
former.  The  curious  antithesis  formed  by  Gnosticism  and  Montanism 
represents  in  like  fashion  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  between  which  the 
great  Church  must  find  a  middle  passage  in  order  to  become  the  Catholic 
Church. 

Gnosticism  has  taken  on  many  forms,  engendered  many  sects  and 
systems ;  nevertheless,  it  is  easy  to  discover  the  fundamental  essence  and 
inspiration  of  them  all.  It  was  the  speculative  mind  of  Greece,  warped 
by  the  influence  of  Alexandria  and  Asia  Minor,  struggling  to  discover 

Ignatius,  "Ad  Smyrn.,"  8;  "Martyr.  Polycarpi,"  epigraph  of  the  letter  from 
Smyrna. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES  33 

high  truths  behind  the  letter  of  ancient  or  popular  myths,  to  trans- 
form faith  into  gnosis  or  knowledge,  and  positive  religions  into  esoteric 
philosophy.  The  Gnostic  doctors  are  the  first  theologian-philosophers 
of  Christianity.  They  claimed  to  have  the  key  of  the  mysteries  of 
being,  of  life  and  of  death.  Their  mysterious  theosophy  volatilised 
the  very  substance  of  ancient  beliefs;  it  changed  the  narratives  of  the 
Bible  or  of  the  Gospels  into  symbols  of  metaphysical  ideas,  and  the  fact 
of  redemption  into  a  sort  of  cosmological  drama,  designed  to  explain 
and  represent  the  origin  and  the  end  of  evil,  which  are  the  origin  and  the 
end  of  being  itself,  the  flux  and  reflux  of  things.  The  Gnostics  called 
themselves  and  doubtless  believed  themselves  Christians,  but  they  were 
another  sort  of  Christians  than  the  multitude.  They  gave  Jesus  a 
notable  place  among  the  divine  aeons  which  they  found  under  the  figure 
of  the  popular  divinities;  they  even  gave  to  him  a  decisive  part,  the 
part  of  Saviour,  in  the  liberation  of  the  spirit  held  captive  in  the  hands 
of  matter,  then  to  be  restored  to  the  divine  pleroma.  Christianity  thus 
remained  the  supreme  religion,  but  its  value  was  no  longer  unique  and 
exceptional;  it  had  lost  its  moral  originality,  it  entered  into  a  vaster 
system  as  one  part  of  it,  as  the  final  link  in  a  chain  of  earlier  revela- 
tions, as  the  symbolic  expression  of  a  higher  and  more  comprehensive 
metaphysic;  in  short,  it  vanished  in  a  general  philosophy  of  cosmic 
evolution.  In  like  fashion  the  old  Lutheran  orthodoxy  was  lost  in  the 
unanticipated  exegesis  and  subtile  dialectic  of  the  Hegelian  system. 

If  to  this  effort  of  Graeco-Alexandrine  speculation  to  resolve  the 
historic  substance  of  the  Christian  faith,  we  add  the  rites  of  initiation, 
the  theurgic  practices,  the  ceremonies  and  plastic  representations  by 
which  all  these  gradually  assimilated  Christian  ceremonial  to  the  mys- 
teries and  the  ceremonial  of  paganism,  it  is  impossible  to  misapprehend 
the  direction  of  the  movement.  It  was  the  revenge  of  the  Greek  mind 
upon  the  apostolic  preaching;  it  was  the  Hellenisation  of  Christianity 
and  its  absorption  into  the  general  philosophy  of  the  time. 

Such  was  the  peril  on  the  left  hand  of  the  still  plastic  Christianity 


34  THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES 

of  the  second  century.  On  the  right  hand  an  opposite  peril  was  not  less 
threatening.  What  was  the  feverish  agitation  which  disturbed  first 
the  churches  of  Asia  Minor,  extending  with  astonishing  rapidity  to 
Rome,  to  Gaul,  to  Africa,  everywhere  setting  the  most  fervent  members 
of  the  communities  in  opposition  to  the  administrators  who  governed 
then?  On  one  side  we  find  prophets,  martyrs,  free  preachers;  on  the 
other  bishops,  elders,  church  councils.  The  Montanism  which  first  ap- 
peared on  the  volcanic  soil  of  Phrygia  was  to  the  colourless  Christianity 
of  the  second  century  the  revival  of  the  "  prophetic  spirit "  of  the  first 
days,  with  its  miraculous  gifts,  its  moral  austerity,  and  feverish  expec- 
tation of  the  Messianic  return  of  Christ  in  the  clouds,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  world  in  a  final  conflagration.  Montanus  inaugurated  the 
last  age  of  the  world,  the  age  of  the  Paraclete. 

Second-century  Christianity  had  not  explicitly  disowned  the  hopes 
or  the  apocalyptic  speculations  of  the  age  preceding.  But  it  no  longer 
expected  a  near  and  violent  catastrophe  to  resolve  the  difficulties  against 
which  it  had  daily  to  struggle.  The  Church  was  no  longer  "  the  com- 
pany of  the  saints,"  it  no  longer  considered  itself  a  stranger  and  pil- 
grim here  below.  It  had  taken  domicile  and  settled  down  upon  the 
earth  among  all  the  other  pioneers  of  the  time.  Such  a  change  could 
not  take  place  without  requiring  a  certain  accommodation  to  pervading 
customs  and  to  the  necessities  of  the  time.  In  the  act  of  expansion  the 
body  of  the  Church  had  become  chilled.  Its  moral  temperature  had 
fallen  several  degrees.  The  piety  of  the  greater  number  had  become 
worldly,  and  tolerant  to  excess,  morals  had  become  relaxed.  Then  arose 
new  prophets  in  the  old  spirit  to  denounce  this  tendency  to  worldliness 
in  the  Church  of  God.  The  outburst  of  Montanism  about  the  year  140 
or  150  was  what  in  our  days  are  those  Anglo-Saxon  revivals  which,  out- 
side of  the  clergy  and  the  official  framework,  from  time  to  time  arouse 
traditional  Protestantism,  too  ready  to  slumber  amid  the  comforts  of 
the  present  world.  In  the  disordered  transports  of  Phrygian  prophet- 
ism  we  find  the  last  paroxysms  of  the  ancient  fever  of  Jewish  Messianism. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES  36 

The  Montanists  claimed  that  in  them  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  had 
revived;  they  predicted  the  near  return  of  the  Christ,  and  the  last  judg- 
ment; they  consequently  proposed  to  maintain,  by  a  discipline  to  the 
last  degree  rigorous,  a  clean-cut  separation  and  irreconcilable  conflict 
between  the  "  family  of  the  saints  "  and  a  corrupt  world  condemned  to 
imminent  destruction.  They  represented  the  most  living  party  in  the 
Church,  and  this  explains  how,  by  nature  volatile,  the  most  pious  Chris- 
tians of  the  West,  the  martyrs  of  Vienne  and  Lyons,  Tertullian  of  Car- 
thage, should  have  shown  themselves  so  favourable  to  a  movement  of 
revival  and  reformation  which  was  to  bring  back  the  golden  age  of 
Christianity. 

But  the  times  had  changed  indeed.  Already  Christian  ideas  and 
customs  had  taken  another  course.  The  tentative  of  Montanus  and  his 
disciples  was  an  anachronism.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Messianic 
hopes,  it  was  the  galvanisation  of  beliefs  practically  dead,  and  from  the 
point  of  view  of  moral  discipline,  it  was  the  resurrection  of  an  ideal 
which  must  meet  an  invincible  resistance  in  the  stubborn  and  mingled 
mass  of  second-century  Christianity. 

When  two  great  opposing  forces  meet,  the  resultant  is  motion  in 
a  middle  direction.  It  was  the  same  with  the  Christianity  of  the  second 
century,  hesitating  and  drawn  in  contrary  directions  by  this  conflict  be- 
tween Gnosticism  and  Montanism.  If  one  was  a  return  to  the  Greek 
spirit,  the  other  was  a  revival  of  the  Jewish  spirit.  The  Christian  body, 
with  those  who  directed  it,  could  neither  absolutely  repudiate  both,  since 
its  life  was  drawn  from  their  double  substance,  nor  obey  exclusively  the 
impulse  of  one  of  the  two.  To  live  at  all,  it  was  forced  to  receive,  and 
mingle  in  its  own  bosom,  such  elements  as  were  capable  of  mingling  and 
amalgamating,  while  rejecting  such  as  seemed  to  be  excessive  and  an- 
tagonistic. 

It  is  difficult,  but  necessary,  to  picture  to  one's  self  the  intellectual 
and  moral  spectacle  offered  by  Christianity  between  the  years  150  and 
180,  under  the  reigns  of  Antoninus  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  The  most 


36  THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES 

diverse  currents  of  thought  and  devotion  came  in  contact  and  mingled 
in  all  possible  ways.  In  the  great  polemics  of  the  age  the  forms  of  the 
age  to  follow  were  decided.  In  the  vat  into  which  the  whole  vintage  had 
been  gathered  a  fermentation,  an  intense  ebullition,  was  going  on,  the 
rapid  decomposition  of  the  old  elements  and  the  slow  recomposition  of 
a  new  system;  it  was  the  crucible  whence  emerged  the  Catholic  theory 
of  the  Church.  This  theory  so  little  came  down  ready-made  from 
heaven  by  a  supernatural  road,  that  the  battle  of  which  it  was  the  issue 
remained  long  uncertain.  It  is  clear  that  this  form  of  Christianity  was 
the  only  one  even  possible  in  the  face  of  dangerous  heresies.  Many 
different  solutions  were  concurrently  sketched  out,  according  to  locality, 
to  respond  to  the  conservative  instinct  of  the  Christian  conscience. 
Alexandria,  for  example,  triumphed  over  heresy  by  a  learned  exegesis 
of  the  sacred  texts,  and  upon  this  exegesis  constituted  a  form  of  Chris- 
tianity which  is  not  without  analogy  with  Protestantism.  What  does 
the  school  of  Pantaenus,  of  Clement,  and  of  Origen  more  closely  resemble 
than  a  little  Protestant  university?  The  Churches  of  Asia  Minor  built 
up  their  tradition  on  another  basis.  They  relied  upon  their  customs, 
upon  the  sayings  of  the  Elders  and  the  Apostle  John,  to  resist  as 
well  the  objurgations  of  Rome  as  the  assaults  of  the  Gnostics  and  the 
diatribes  of  the  Montanists.  It  was  a  sort  of  Anglicanism,  or  better 
perhaps,  of  Gallicism  before  the  Council  of  Trent.  At  Antioch  and 
in  Syria  the  letters  of  Ignatius  offer  a  mystical  theory  of  the  Episco- 
pate which  is  essentially  Oriental,  and  radically  different  from  the 
Roman  theory,  which  was  destined  to  triumph. 

But  in  this  crisis,  the  outcome  of  which  was  to  be  a  radical  trans- 
formation of  primitive  Christianity,  in  this  work  of  general  salvation, 
it  was  Rome  which,  by  its  political  importance  as  by  its  genius  for 
government,  was  destined  to  take  the  direction,  and  impose  upon  the 
others  the  necessary  solution.  Alexandria  was  half  Gnostic,  and  yielded 
to  heresy  while  trying  to  refute  it  by  a  method  of  her  own.  Asia  Minor, 
Gaul,  Carthage,  were  in  secret  sympathy  with  Montanism.  Rome  clearly 


THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES  37 

saw  the  double  peril ;  it  faced  both  sides  at  once,  defined  the  vacillating 
orthodoxy,  and  at  the  outset  proposed  practical  solutions  most  apt  to 
make  it  everywhere  triumphant.  The  Catholic  theory  of  the  Church 
was  a  Roman  work. 

Without  the  least  concern  about  philosophical  logic  or  learned  exe- 
gesis, treating  religious  questions  like  political  matters,  solely  intent 
upon  maintaining  the  visible  unity  of  the  body  of  the  Church  and 
eliminating  from  it  all  elements  of  dissidence  and  anarchy,  she  invented, 
or  rather  applied,  in  the  religious  and  moral  order,  the  juridic  author- 
ity of  prescription  so  well  developed  by  Tertullian. 

Instead  of  encouraging  discussion  with  heretics,  Rome  suppressed  it ; 
providing  for  believers  a  way  to  oppose  to  all  objections  a  declinatory, 
a  sort  of  previous  question,  which  did  more  than  refute  heresy,  which 
executed  it  before  it  had  opened  its  mouth.1  This  method  was  a  con- 
fession of  apostolic  faith,  a  popular  and  universal  symbol,  which,  be- 
coming a  law  of  the  Church,  excluded  from  its  midst,  without  dispute, 
all  those  who  refused  to  repeat  it.  It  was  the  "  Rule  of  Faith."  The 
Church  of  Rome  easily  obtained  it  by  adding  a  few  clear  and  well-defined 
propositions  to  the  formula  of  baptism  recited  by  the  neophytes  in 
primitive  times.  This  is  how,  against  Gnostic  dualism,  she  maintained 
the  identity  of  the  supreme  God,  creator  of  the  world;  and  against 
Docetism,  the  reality  of  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  of  his  sufferings  and 
death.  These  are  the  origins  of  the  symbol  called,  "  Of  the  Apostles,"  the 
first  and  venerable  monument  of  Catholic  orthodoxy.  It  saw  the  light 
in  its  earliest  form  in  the  church  of  Rome,  between  the  years  150  and 
160,  and  as  it  offered  a  means  of  defence  extremely  easy  and  sure,  it 
passed  rapidly  from  the  Roman  church  to  the  other  churches. 

The  victory  over  Montanism  was  slower  and  more  difficult,  but  it 
also  had  still  more  decisive  practical  consequences.  In  the  end  the 

1  Tertullian,  the  entire  treatise  "  De  Praescriptione  Haereticorum,"  especially  chap. 
20,  21.  Thus  is  the  question  of  truth  decided  for  the  Church.  It  is  not  by  research 
into  intellectual  or  moral  proof,  always  uncertain,  but  by  an  exterior  and  legal 
criterion  which  makes  all  discussion  useless. 


38  THE  CHURCH  AND  HERESIES 

bishops  got  the  better  of  the  prophets,  and  bent  to  their  own  disciplinary 
authority  and  oversight  all  inspirations  and  miraculous  gifts,  however 
striking  they  might  appear  to  be.  This  was  the  capital  point.  From 
that  time  the  bishops  appeared  as  the  highest  organs  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
whose  action  was  directed  into  clearly  defined  channels,  and  confined 
within  the  hierarchy.  The  ecclesiastical  order  and  the  religious  order 
became  so  closely  identified  that  it  would  never  again  be  possible  to  set 
one  against  the  other,  or  to  attempt  to  reform  the  Church  in  the  name 
of  the  Spirit,  since  the  Church  judges,  without  appeal,  of  the  truth  or 
the  properties  of  the  Spirit. 

By  the  same  act,  the  conceptions  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  which  in  the  beginning  were  a  whole  heaven  apart, 
were  blended  and  identified.1  The  apocalyptic  hope  lost  its  object.  The 
reign  of  God  was  to  come  in  the  triumphs  and  progressive  conquests  of 
the  Church  over  the  world.  Thenceforth  the  attributes  of  the  one  passed 
over  to  the  other.  The  visible  body  of  the  Church  clothed  itself  in  the 
ideal  perfections  of  the  kingdom  of  God;  holiness,  unity,  catholicity, 
infallibility,  eternity.  That  which  in  the  faith  of  Jesus  and  the  apostles 
was  transcendent,  became  a  visible  and  historic  society.  The  ideal  and 
the  real  were  confused.  God  wills  to  rule  the  world  through  the  Church, 
and  the  Church  reigns  through  its  hierarchy.  In  his  Church,  and  by  his 
ministers,  God  gives  his  oracles,  distributes  his  graces,  rewards,  absolves, 
or  punishes.  Outside  the  Church  is  no  salvation,  because  apart  from 
her  Christianity  is  a  pure  abstraction,  less  than  nothing.  For  this 
Church  there  could  be  no  question  of  weakness  or  erring,  since  beyond 
the  promises  of  indefectibility,  which  were  made  to  it  by  its  founder,  it 
is  nothing  other  than  the  Word  of  God  made  flesh,  the  very  truth  itself 
rendered  visible  and  permanent  on  earth  in  a  historic  institution.2 

Thus  at  last,  but  not  before  the  third  century,  we  meet  the  Catholic 
dogma  of  the  Church.  It  comes  forth  from  the  womb  of  history  by  a 

1  See  the  conception  of  the«City  of  God  in  "  Augustine." 
*  Appendix  XVI. 


HISTORIC  AND  SUPERNATURAL  VIEW  39 

long  and  painful  birth  process,  and  is  to  be  naturally  explained,  like 
every  other  historic  phenomenon,  by  the  inner  logic  of  ideas  and  things, 
the  circumstances  of  the  time,  the  genius  or  the  ambition  of  men.  Rome 
had  laid  its  first  foundation  by  promulgating  the  Rule  of  Faith  against 
heresy ;  she  completed  the  edifice  by  her  theory  of  Apostolic  Succession, 
which  became  the  foundation  of  the  authority  of  the  bishops.  These 
two  new  theories  constitute  the  very  essence  of  the  Catholic  conception 
of  the  Church.  It  remains  to  examine  both  more  closely.1 


CHAPTER  THREE 

TRADITION 


Historic  and  Supernatural  View 

IN  a  general  sense,  tradition  is  the  bond  of  the  generations  of  the  human 
race,  which  by  this  succession  form  an  organic  sequence,  transmitting 
to  the  last  comers  the  heritage  of  those  who  preceded  them.  It  is  the 
light  of  time,  the  woof  of  history,  the  permanent  consciousness  of 
humanity. 

Every  society  engenders  traditions  which  become  the  treasure  house 
of  its  memories  and  customs,  its  spiritual  acquisitions,  its  laws,  all  the 
fruit  of  its  life.  From  this  private  treasury  it  continually  draws  lessons 
and  examples,  inspirations  and  virtues,  an  experience  and  a  practical 
sagacity  which  nothing  else  can  supply.  This  is  the  condition  of  all 
progress,  and  the  law  of  life.  That  which  is  without  a  past  has  no 
future. 

If  we  compare  tradition  to  a  stream  flowing  down  the  ages,  it  is 

» Appendix  XVII. 


40  HISTORIC  AND  SUPERNATURAL  VIEW 

clear  that  that  happens  to  it  which  happens  to  all  rivers;  as  it  travels 
farther  from  its  source  its  increasing  waters  become  imbued  with  the 
washings  of  the  various  earth  strata  through  which  they  pass.  To  drop 
the  figure,  it  is  a  historic  law  that  every  tradition  not  fixed  in  writing 
changes  in  process  of  development;  the  more  distant  it  is  from  the 
events,  so  much  the  more  their  image  and  memory  becomes  altered  and 
transformed,  and  the  final  form  of  the  tradition  differs  from  the 
original  character  which  was  its  starting  point,  unless  a  vigilant  and 
severe  criticism  has  unceasingly  sifted  it,  to  free  it  from  intermingling 
legends  and  superstitions,  and  maintain  it  in  primitive  purity.  The 
duty  of  criticism  is  thus  as  imprescriptible  as  the  rights  of  tradition. 

Without  the  first,  the  second  would  remain  fruitless,  or  rather,  would 
become  an  invincible  obstacle  to  progress.  It  would  be.  the  enslavement 
of  progress.  It  would  be  the  subjection  of  the  present  and  the  future 
to  the  past,  the  stagnation  and  ultimate  decay  of  the  human  mind. 

In  the  Renascence  the  alliance  of  stimulating  criticism  with  con- 
serving tradition  wrought  victory  in  the  sciences,  in  philosophy, 
politics,  and  art,  and  since  that  time  it  has  shown  itself  admirably  fruit- 
ful. Men  have  understood  that  the  heritage  of  the  ages,  however 
precious,  cannot  reasonably  be  accepted  except  with  reserves.  Tradi- 
tion hands  down  everything,  good  and  bad,  error  and  truth,  excellent 
habits  and  barbarous  customs,  generous  sentiments  and  detestable  insti- 
tutions. We  thus  understand  Pascal's  saying :  "  Humanity  is  a  man 
who  is  to  live  forever,  and  learn  without  ceasing."  From  this  point  of 
view  the  moderns  are  the  ancients,  since  they  have  a  longer  experience 
behind  them.  The  ancients,  on  the  contrary,  are  the  younger,  they  are 
the  children,  because  they  came  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world.  How 
should  the  judgment  of  ripe  age  be  subordinated  to  the  first  reasonings 
of  youth? 

This  rational  view  of  tradition  is  not  the  Catholic  view;  it  is  dis- 
tinguished from  it  by  one  essential  characteristic.  In  the  Church  tradi- 
tion belongs  to  the  supernatural  order.  The  truth  transmitted  and  the 


HISTORIC  AND  SUPERNATURAL  VIEW  41 

act  of  transmission  are  alike  clothed  with  divine  character.  The  tradi- 
tion of  the  Church  becomes  the  sovereign  rule  of  truth,  and  by  that  fact 
is  raised  above  criticism  and  discussion. 

The  tradition  of  the  Church  is  often  opposed  to  Holy  Scripture, 
especially  since  the  controversies  evoked  by  Protestantism.  From  the 
historic  point  of  view,  this  opposition  is  absolutely  without  justification, 
since  the  Scriptures  are  simply  the  earliest  form  of  the  tradition,  fixed 
in  books,  and  thus  shielded  from  alteration  and  neglect.  If  the  question 
is  What  was  primitive  Christianity  ?  it  is  evident  that  the  apostolic  writ- 
ings are  the  best  source  of  information  at  the  historian's  disposal,  since 
they  are  the  most  ancient  and  the  most  faithful  testimony  which  we  pos- 
sess. What  might  be  told  of  the  life  of  Christ  after  the  close  of  the 
second  century,  outside  of  these  written  events,  is  almost  worthless. 

But  from  the  dogmatic  point  of  view  the  question  is  reversed,  at 
least  in  Catholicism.  The  Church  has  definitely  decided  what  must  be 
held  as  sacred  scriptures,  and  what  must  be  looked  upon  as  apocrypha. 
The  traditional  faith  of  the  Church  alone  gives  legitimate  interpreta- 
tion of  the  sacred  texts.  The  supreme  judge  of  controversy  is  therefore 
not  Scripture,  but  tradition.  The  first  is  subordinate  to  the  second. 
There  is  in  the  Church  a  latent  tradition  of  truth,  of  which  the  biblical 
writings  are  merely  a  first  emanation,  and  from  which  they  cannot  be 
separated  without  losing  all  guaranty  and  value.  The  Council  of  Trent 
placed  in  the  same  rank,  as  issuing  from  the  same  source  of  inspiration, 
apostolic  Scriptures  and  tradition,  beliefs  and  customs  received  by  oral 
transmission  from  the  apostles  to  our  time ;  and  that  none  may,  as  do  the 
Protestants,  set  these  authorities  over  against  one  another,  and  criticise 
tradition  in  the  name  of  the  Bible,  it  pronounced  anathema  those  who 
warp  the  Scriptures  according  to  their  own  sense,  and  in  the  last  resort 
it  gave  the  Church  alone  the  right  to  judge  of  the  texts,  and  the  inter- 
pretation to  be  put  upon  them.1 

The  Church  is  not  merely  assisted  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  guarding 
the  ancient  writing;  it  is  equally  her  mission  to  explain,  complete,  and 

1  Appendix  XVHL 


42        THE  AUTHORITY  OF  TRADITION  IN  JUDAISM 

enrich  this  primitive  deposit  in  the  progressive  measure  which  new  times 
may  require.  Tradition  is  never  exhausted  and  never  fixed.  It  is  an  ever 
creative  inspiration.  As  the  permanent  incarnation  of  the  Word  of 
God,  the  Church  pronounces  this  Word  sovereign  whenever  it  speaks  by 
the  mouth  of  those  who  have  the  right  to  speak  in  her  name.  Formerly 
she  had  bishops  and  councils  for  her  organs.  To-day  she  is  concentrated 
in  the  papacy.  But  it  is  still  tradition  which  gives  authority  to  the 
Pope,  as  formerly  to  the  Councils.  In  tradition  infallibility  properly 
resides. 

How  was  so  extraordinary  a  theory  formed?  At  what  precise  date 
did  it  appear?  What  causes  produced  it  and  made  it  victorious? 
Through  what  forms  and  what  stages  did  it  pass,  from  Irenaeus  and 
Tertullian,  who  laid  its  first  foundations,  to  the  point  jof  perfection  and 
concentration  to  which  it  has  attained  in  our  day  ?  As  many  chapters  as 
questions,  but  history  to-day  throws  full  light  upon  them  all,  leaving  no 
smallest  place  for  miracle  or  mystery. 

II 

The  Authority  of  Tradition  m  Judaism 

ALL  religious  traditions,  at  least  those  of  antiquity,  appear  invested 
with  a  sacred  character.  They  were  incarnated  in  priests,  who,  in  the 
name  of  the  Divinity  itself,  taught  other  men  the  rites  and  dogmas  ac- 
cording to  which  it  would  be  adored.  Thence  the  anxious  scruples  and 
fastidious  care  which  were  given  to  the  recitation  of  formulas  and  the 
performance  of  acts  of  worship.  A  tradition  of  this  nature  taking  form 
in  the  Christian  Church  of  the  early  centuries,  while  the  habits  of  ancient 
cults  weighed  heavy  upon  it,  is  not,  therefore,  a  unique  nor  even  an  ex- 
ceptional phenomenon.  It  may  be  found  repeated  all  along  the  history 
of  religions,  following  a  very  clear  psychological  and  social  law. 
Nothing  is  more  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  it  would  have  been  truly  a 
miracle  had  it  been  otherwise. 


THE  AUTHORITY  OF  TRADITION  IN  JUDAISM        43 

A  striking  parallel,  not  to  cite  others,  offers  itself  in  the  history  of 
Judaism.  The  Mosaic  law,  built  up  and  definitively  put  into  form  in  the 
time  of  Ezra,  appeared,  notwithstanding  its  minute  prescriptions,  in- 
capable of  sufficing  for  itself.  Almost  immediately  an  oral  tradition,  to 
accompany  and  protect  the  sacred  text,  was  drawn  from  the  teaching 
of  the  rabbins,  as  Catholic  tradition  was  later  born  of  that  of  the 
bishops  and  Fathers  of  the  Church.  The  Pharisees  became  the  jealous 
guardians  of  this  rabbinic  tradition,  and  to  give  it  the  more  cogent 
authority  it  was  dated  back  to  Moses,  precisely  as  the  bishop  and  councils 
traced  the  traditions  of  which  they  were  the  repositories  to  Christ  and 
the  apostles. 

Little  by  little  the  legend  became  accredited,  that  after  having  given 
the  written  law  on  descending  from  Mount  Sinai,  Moses  farther  trans- 
mitted orally  to  the  elders  many  precepts  and  commentaries ;  they  in 
turn  bequeathed  them  to  the  prophets,  and  from  the  prophets  they  came 
down  without  interruption  to  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue.  Thus 
the  Scribes,  as  Jesus  said,  were  truly,  according  to  their  tradition,  sitting 
in  Moses'  seat,  as  the  bishops  later  in  that  of  Christ. 

From  that  time  it  became  as  sinful  to  contradict  this  tradition  as  to 
violate  the  law  itself.  In  Pharisaism,  as  later  in  Catholicism,  the 
Scriptures  came  under  subjection  to  oral  tradition,  for  the  reason  that 
the  master  of  the  interpretation  is  always  the  true  master  of  the  text. 

Here  again,  as  in  the  history  of  Catholicism,  the  authority  of  tradi- 
tion rendered  all  reform  impossible.  All  truly  inspired  souls,  all  re- 
formers and  prophets,  fell  and  were  broken  against  this  sacred  barrier. 
This  was  the  fate  of  John  the  Baptist,  it  was  the  fate  of  Christ  him- 
self. Between  him  and  the  Pharisees  began  at  the  very  outset  a  contest 
concerning  the  authority  of  "  the  tradition  of  the  elders."  One  needs 
only  to  read  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the  discussions  about  the 
Sabbath,  fasting,  unclean  food.  Jesus  accused  them  of  making  void  the 
law  of  God  himself  by  the  commandments  of  men,  and  of  binding  weak 
consciences  with  heavy  chains.  They  in  return  could  not  forgive  him 


44  THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION 

the  freedom  of  his  inspiration,  the  boldness  of  his  conduct,  and  his  dis- 
courses, which  tended  to  nothing  less  than  the  downfall  of  the  entire 
edifice  of  Jewish  piety.  It  was  the  eternal  struggle,  soon  to  be  repeated 
in  the  very  Church  of  Christ,  between  traditional  formalism  and  the 
inspirations  of  conscience. 

Is  it  impossible  to  establish  a  more  direct  line  of  descent  between 
Pharisaic  tradition  and  the  origin  of  the  Catholic  idea?  The  first 
Christians,  coming  out  from  Judaism,  had  been  brought  up  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  Pharisaism.  What  is  there  surprising  in  their  retaining  its 
mental  habits,  and  especially  that  respect  for  tradition  which  was  still  all- 
powerful  in  the  Semitic  East?  What  did  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord, 
and  the  apostles  in  Jerusalem,  but  maintain,  against  Paul  and  his  dis- 
quieting inspiration,  the  scrupulous  care  of  the  "  oral  tradition  "  con- 
cerning the  words  and  example  of  Christ?  Why  were  they  called  the 
"  pillars  "  of  the  Messianic  Church,  if  not  because  they  were  the  up- 
holders of  its  tradition?  Does  not  the  entire  second  Christian  century, 
whether  in  the  person  of  those  who  were  already  called  "  the  Catholics," 
or  of  the  Ebionites,  or  of  the  Gnostics,  make  common  appeal  to  the 
tradition  of  the  elders,  as  to  a  decisive  authority?  The  Church  had  in- 
herited and  was  keeping  alive  the  habits  of  the  synagogue.1 


m 

The  Earliest  Christian  Tradition 

WE  must  not  form  our  ideas  of  early  Christianity  from  its  organisation 
and  its  dogmatic  in  the  time  of  Constantine,  still  less  from  those  of 
modern  times.  Between  the  first  age  and  those  which  followed  there  is 
all  the  difference  between  matter  in  a  state  of  fusion  and  matter  grown 
cold  and  solid. 

'"Horn.,"  Clement,  letter  of  Peter  to  James,  first  lines;  "  Recognitiones,"  I.  21, 
**;  II.  45,  x.  4,9.  See,  also,  Acts  xv.,  xxi.  20  ff.;  Gal.  ii.  1-15.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Basilides  and  Valentinian  also  took  advantage  of  a  special  apostolic  tradition. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION  46 

Unity  of  association  arose  spontaneously  from  unity  of  hearts  and 
the  common  possession  of  an  ardent  hope.  The  profession  of  faith  of  the 
first  Christians  was  short :  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  the  Messiah,"  and  their 
watchword  shorter  still :  Maranatha,  '"  The  Lord  is  at  hand."  With- 
out exception  they  all  lived  in  the  belief,  at  that  time  so  widespread,  that 
the  last  days  of  the  existing  order  were  at  hand ;  and  this  belief ,  doing 
away  with  the  idea  of  a  long  future,  at  the  same  time  dispensed  them 
from  all  care  and  trouble  with  a  view  to  founding  a  permanent  establish- 
ment here  below.1 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  greater  delusion  than  that  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  when  it  seeks  to  discover  its  own  image  in  this 
primitive  society.  We  are  here  in  the  age  of  apocalyptic  Messianism, 
of  free  inspiration,  of  the  miraculous  gifts  of  the  Spirit.2 

Jesus  wrote  nothing  nor  caused  anything  to  be  written.  He  never 
dreamed  of  giving  a  second  volume  to  the  Bible  of  the  Jews,  still  less  of 
creating  another  sacerdotal  order  and  new  ceremonies.  He  left  neither 
dogmas  nor  rules  other  than  the  maxims  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
or  the  teachings  of  his  parables  and  the  promise  of  his  return.  He 
desired  to  have  only  apostles,  that  is,  "  messengers,"  to  preach  every- 
where that  the  time  was  fulfilled  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  about 
to  appear.  That  a  new  religion  resulted  from  the  preaching  of  this 
gospel  was  because,  under  the  Messianic  form,  which  it  at  first  took  on, 
there  was  the  contagious  sentiment  of  an  entirely  new  relation,  a  filial 
relation  to  God,  of  a  new  revelation  of  God  in  the  heart  of  man,  as  a 
divine  leaven,  an  all-powerful  grace,  which  should  regenerate  and  fecun- 
date the  entire  life  of  humanity. 

Thus  the  Master  confided  his  gospel  to  the  free  and  living  preaching 
of  his  disciples  and  the  assistance  of  the  Spirit. 

1  Matt.  iii.  2;  Mark  i.  15,  ix.  1.,  and  paral.  Matt.  xriv.  33,  34;  Acts  ii.17;  1  Cor.  vii. 
29;  Gal.  i.  4;  2  Tim.  iii.  1  Pet  i.  5;  Jas.  v.  3,  8,  9;  Rev.  i.  1,  xxii.  20;  Heb.  x.  25,  37; 
1  Jno.  ii.  18,  "  Teaching  of  the  Apostles,"  cxvi. 

'  See  the  description  of  the  inner  life  of  the  first  Christian  community,  1  Cor.  xiL, 
xiii. 


46  THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION 

But  as  they  were  repeated  these  discourses  took  on  permanent  forms. 
Thus  spontaneously  sprang  into  life  the  first  Christian  tradition,  like 
all  historic  traditions:  it  was  formed  naturally  from  the  stories  of  the 
life,  death,  and  resurrection  of  Jesus,  which  the  apostles  must  have  told 
in  order  to  show  by  them  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies,  and  persuade 
all  men  that  this  was  indeed  the  Messiah  of  the  people.1  In  Christian 
circles  the  tradition  grew  daily  richer  by  what  each  had  learned  and  re- 
lated of  the  "  deeds  and  words  "  of  the  Master,  as  in  the  second  century 
said  Papias,  bishop  of  Hierapolis,  so  curious  and  avid  for  these  words 
of  the  ancient  witnesses.  Thus,  at  the  end  of  twenty  or  thirty  years, 
we  find  the  gospel  message  and  the  substance  of  Christian  preaching  com- 
monly designated  by  the  terms  "  tradition,"  "  pattern  of  teaching,"  the 
"  good  deposit  "  which  must  be  treasured  up  and  guarded  with  care.2 

The  mirage  and  illusion  began  when  people  began  to  imagine  that 
this  initial  tradition  was  the  deliberate  and  premeditated  work  of  an 
official  authority,  and  that  the  apostles,  in  college  assembled,  enclosed 
it  in  rules  and  formulas.  This  was  entirely  to  misapprehend  the  true 
office  of  the  apostles,  and  the  character  of  that  age,  in  which  all  Chris- 
tians, baptised  with  spirit  and  fire,  enjoyed  the  sacred  and  fruitful 
gift  of  inspiration. 

Without  any  doubt,  on  their  own  testimony,  the  Twelve  began  to 
lay  the  foundations  of  this  tradition,  which  for  this  reason  may  be 
called  "  apostolic,"  but  they  were  not  alone  in  this  work.  All  those  who 
knew  or  believed  that  they  knew  something  about  Christ,  all  those  who 
had  received  or  believed  that  they  had  received  some  heavenly  revelation, 
brought  their  gift  to  the  common  treasury.  Little  by  little  it  all  began 
to  be  epitomised  and  organised,  yet  without  taking  on  a  single  and 
permanent  form.  Born  of  memory  and  faith  the  tree  grew  naturally, 


'Acts,  ii.  22-36,  viii.  26-35,  x.  34-43;  1  Cor.  xv.  1-3. 

»The  Gospel  was  currently  called  a  "Word,"  the  "Word  of  God,"  the  "Received 
Word,"  vap&doffu,  TVXOS  SiSaxv,  wapaSifmj.  Luke  i.  2;  1  Cor.  x.  23,  xi.  2,  xv.  1-3; 
2  Tim.  i.  14;  Rom.  vi,  17;  2  Thess.  ii.  15,  etc. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION  47 

and  day  by  day  adorned  itself  with  new  flowers,  or  even  with  new 
branches.1 

To  become  convinced  of  this  absence  of  all  fundamental  or  official 
decision,  to  grasp  the  movement  and  life  of  this  first  tradition,  its  pro- 
gressive enrichment  and  incessant  variability,  it  will  suffice  to  follow  it 
in  its  two  constituent  parts,  the  acts  and  teachings,  that  is,  the  biog- 
raphy of  Jesus,  and  the  interpretation  which  was  put  upon  it.  In  both 
parts  there  is  a  common  stock,  a  harmony  of  essential  data  and  large 
outlines.  But  as  we  advance,  what  a  variety  of  concurrent  forms! 
What  inconsistencies!  What  polemics  and  conflicts! 

The  "  sayings  of  the  Lord  "  became,  side  by  side  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  ultimate  norm  to  which  to  refer  for  resolution  all  questions 
that  might  arise  in  the  life  of  the  earliest  communities;  they  were 
therefore  carefully  gathered  up,  repeated,  and  memorised.2  It  appears 
highly  probable  that  the  first  Gospel  writings  were  collections  of  these 
"  sayings  "  or  logia,  which  the  second  Christian  generation  must  espe- 
cially have  felt  the  need  of  collecting  and  putting  in  definite  form.3  In 
any  case  it  is  certain  that  such  were  still  cited  from  memory  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  century.4 

Half  a  century  after  the  death  of  Jesus  the  tradition  of  the  events 
of  his  life,  while  already  firm  in  its  large  outlines,  was  far  from  being 
identical  in  all  regions  where  Christianity  prevailed.  Here  it  was  very 
rich,  and  there  very  meagre.  Thus  is  explained  the  great  variety  in  the 
first  written  narratives,  with  which  Luke  was  not  satisfied,  and  which  he 

'The  latest  of  these  branches,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  fruitful,  is  repre- 
sented by  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

*1  Thess.  iv.  15,  v.  2;  1  Cor.  viL  10,  12,  ix.  14;  Rom.  xii,  14,  20,  etc. 

»It  is  now  generally  admitted  that  the  Apostle  Matthew  composed  an  Aramaean 
collection  of  this  kind.  In  any  case,  Luke  and  the  author  of  the  First  Gospel  had 
such  collections  at  their  disposal.  Luke  i.  1-4;  Prologue,  and  the  testimony  of  Papias 
in  Eusebius,  H.  E.  III.  39. 

4  This  is  the  case  with  Clement  of  Rome,  with  Papias,  Ignatius,  and  Polycarp, 
who,  though  they  were  acquainted  with  this  or  that  written  gospel,  preferred  to  draw 
from  oral  tradition.  As  much  may  be  said  of  the  authors  of  the  "  Teaching  of  the 
Apostles." 


48  THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION 

undertook  to  correct,  complete,  and  harmonise  in  a  new  account.1  These 
were  private  and  entirely  occasional  works,  which  naturally  reflected  the 
environment  in  which  they  were  produced. 

Papias,  following  a  still  more  ancient  witness,  tells  us  that  Mark, 
the  interpreter  of  Peter,  put  into  writing  the  acts  and  sayings  of  Jesus, 
according  to  his  memory  of  the  preaching  of  that  apostle;  but  as  the 
teaching  of  the  latter  was  determined  by  the  occasion,  Mark  could  not 
draw  from  it  a  connected  and  complete  whole,  and  he  deserves  no  blame, 
since  he  simply  undertook  to  relate,  without  falsehood  or  alteration,  the 
things  which  he  had  thus  learned.2  Luke,  with  other  resources,  did  no 
otherwise.  This  is  how,  in  the  New  Testament  canon,  we  have  not  a 
single  Gospel,  as  would  have  been  the  case  had  the  apostles  ordered  the 
preparation  of  one,  but  four  narratives  sufficiently  different  for  us  to  be 
incapable  at  the  present  day  of  reconciling  their  data  and  resolving 
their  inconsistencies.  Where  do  we  find  the  official  authority  of  the 
apostles  intervening  to  direct  this  work  of  writing  which  was  to  have 
such  importance  for  the  destinies  of  the  Christian  religion?  It  was 
with  the  early  Christian  literature  as  with  all  popular  literature,  echoes 
of  a  free  and  living  tradition ;  it  was  born  of  the  circumstances  and  the 
needs  of  each  day.3 

Until  about  the  year  130,  the  time  of  Poly  carp  and  Papias,  the  divers 
Gospel  writings  were  still  encompassed  by  the  oral  tradition  from  which 
they  had  issued,  and  by  which  they  continued  to  be  nourished.  But  by 
the  time  of  Justin  Martyr  they  had  finally  absorbed  all  the  substance  of 
tradition,  and  had  taken  its  place  in  Christian  confidence.  One  thing  is 
worthy  of  remark:  all  that  it  has  been  possible  to  glean  outside  of  our 
four  Gospels  about  the  life  of  Jesus  in  the  subsequent  tradition  of  the 
Church  is  of  very  little,  not  to  say  of  no,  value.  It  is  not  that  tradition 
was  sterile,  on  the  contrary  it  was  prodigiously  fecund,  as  the  Apocry- 
phal Gospels  bear  witness,  but  it  brought  forth  only  legends. 

1  See  the  prologue  of  Luke's  Gospel,  i.  1-4. 

'Euseb.  H.  E.  III.  39.     Testimony  of  John  the  Elder,  preserved  by  PapiM. 

'This  ii  even  more  true  of  the  apostolic  letters  than  of  the  Gospels. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION  49 

Christian  tradition  is  therefore  not  of  divine  institution.  It  was 
born  and  developed  from  beginning  to  end  after  the  manner  of  all 
historic  traditions,  which  grow  richer  as  they  grow  older,  but  bring  with 
them  so  much  the  less  warrant  in  proportion  as  they  travel  farther  from 
the  time  and  place  of  their  origin. 

Catholic  theology  was  right  in  maintaining  against  the  old  Prot- 
estant theology  that  Scripture  is  born  of  tradition ;  but  it  was  wrong  in 
concluding  therefrom  that  the  later  tradition  may  have  as  much  weight 
as  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  or  more ;  since  the  latter  represent 
a  more  ancient,  and  by  so  much  more  faithful,  tradition.  The  truth  is 
that  all  tradition  calls  for  historic  criticism  and  its  methods  of  verifica- 
tion. There  is  no  other  way  of  discerning  how  much  it  is  worth. 

If  such  is  the  variability  of  tradition  as  to  the  events  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  how  much  greater  must  it  be  as  to  the  forms  of  his  preaching  and 
teaching !  In  that  age  of  general  inspiration,  diversities  of  gifts  and  of 
environment  must  have  been  more  acutely  felt  in  this  field  than  else- 
where. Thus  we  see,  even  in  the  apostolic  generation,  the  appearance 
of  very  different  types  of  doctrine  and  preaching.  When  the  Apostle 
Paul  said  "  my  gospel,"  opposing  it  to  that  of  his  adversaries,  he  had 
a  very  vivid  conception  of  all  that  was  specific,  new,  and  original,  in  his 
doctrine.  He  was  not  unaware,  as  his  letter  to  the  Christians  of  Galatia 
shows,  that  his  doctrine  and  mission  were  an  occasion  of  scandal,  and 
a  cause  of  violent  polemic  and  hatred  to  the  Pharisaeo-Christians  of 
Jerusalem.  James,  the  Lord's  brother,  did  not  preach  after  that 
fashion.  Though  they  and  Paul  alike  confessed  Jesus  "  the  Messiah  of 
glory,"  they  hardly  agreed  as  to  the  meaning  of  his  death,  the  nature  of 
his  person,  or  in  their  notions  of  faith  and  redemption.  In  what  con- 
cerned the  law  of  Moses  and  the  national  customs  of  Israel,  the  differ- 
ence in  their  attitude  and  utterances  reached  open  conflict,  the  latter 
declaring  them  definitively  abrogated,  the  former  preserving  them.1 

'Testimony  of  Paul  in  Gal.  i.,  ii.;  testimony  as  to  James  in  Gal.  ii.  1,  2;  Acts  xv. 
1,  2,  IS  ff,  xxi.  18  ff ;  see  all  the  second  part  of  the  2d  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and 


60  THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION 

Between  these  extremes,  how  many  intermediate  types  formed  the 
transition  and  filled  the  wide  space!  It  suffices  to  recall  the  names  of 
Apollos,  Peter,  Philip,  John,  who  represent  very  distinct  tendencies.1 
And  are  not  these  varieties  found  in  the  New  Testament,  where  we  find 
by  turns  writings  so  different  in  method  and  thought  as  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  and  that  of  James,  the  Gospels  of  Mark  and  of  John,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Apocalypse?  That  there  was  unity  of 
religious  faith,  of  the  first  inspiration,  we  admit,  indeed,  but  what  a 
wealth  and  what  a  diversity  of  theologies !  Does  it  not  clearly  appear 
that  no  rule,  no  official  credo  yet  existed,  and  that  no  exterior  authority 
had  risen  to  cramp  or  stifle  the  spontaneity  of  individual  inspiration? 

A  curious  little  book  recently  discovered,  which  dates  from  the  first 
third  of  the  second  century,  but  represents  a  condition  of  things  still 
more  ancient,  brings  a  yet  more  significant  testimony.  "  The  Teach- 
ings of  the  Lord  according  to  the  Twelve  Apostles  "  contains,  brought 
together  in  a  few  pages,  the  Catechism,  the  Liturgy,  and  the  ecclesi- 
astical discipline  which  regulated  the  teaching,  the  worship,  and  the 
inner  life  of  the  communities  of  Palestine  or  of  Syria  under  the  reign 
of  Trajan,  at  latest.  The  gospel  is  here  summed  up  under  the  figure 
of  two  roads,  one  of  which  leads  to  life  and  the  other  to  death,  with 
a  few  maxims  borrowed  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  There  are 
only  two  rites :  Baptism  and  the  Eucharist,  and  the  prayers  which  accom- 
pany them,  though  of  a  fine  mysticism,  seem  entirely  to  ignore  the  teach- 
ings of  Paul.  Finally,  the  edification  of  the  communities  is  still  in  great 
part  effected  by  itinerant  prophets  and  evangelists,  in  presence  of  whom 
is  felt  the  necessity  of  recommending  that  the  former  should  be  placed 
in  care  of  deacons  and  bishops  regularly  elected  and  settled.  Com- 
paring this  venerable  document  with  the  "  Apostolic  Constitutions  "  of 

Phil,  i.  15-18,  iii.  2,  etc.  Hegesippus  in  Eusebius  upon  the  Pharisaeo-Christians,  bitter 
enemies  of  Paul.  To  measure  the  consequences  and  the  notoriety  of  these  early 
contentions  one  must  read  the  Clementine  Homilies. 

'See  what  Paul  says  in  the  first  three  chapters  of  his  first  letter  to  the  Corin- 
thians, and  especially  1  Cor.  iii.  10-15. 


BAPTISMAL  FORMULA  AND  APOSTOLIC  SYMBOL     61 

the  fourth  century,  it  is  easy  to  measure  the  progress  made  by  the 
Church.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  first  landmark  set  up,  a  first  attempt  to 
give  legal  and  official  form  to  apostolic  tradition,  and  it  brings  back  a 
past  in  the  act  of  disappearing  and  preparing  the  way  for  a  new  future. 
The  road  is  open.  Henceforth  ecclesiastical  authority  will  take  pre- 
cedence of  inspiration.  The  principle  of  future  legislation  is  laid  down. 
It  is  the  doctrine,  the  tradition  of  the  apostles. 

True,  the  tradition  was  still  rudimentary  and  floating.  We  shall 
see  how,  by  the  polemics  of  the  second  century,  it  reached  definiteness  and 
precision. 

IV 

The  Baptismal  Formula  and  the  Apostolic  Symbol 

IT  was  inevitable  that  the  dogmatic  crystallisation  of  this  still  fluid 
tradition  should  take  place,  as  by  degrees  it  did  take  place,  around  the 
point  of  least  resistance  in  the  new  cult.  That  point  was  baptism,  with 
the  profession  of  faith  which  from  the  beginning  had  been  associated 
with  it. 

Not  that  we  have  not  here,  as  elsewhere,  an  evolution  of  ideas  and 
forms.  But  the  development  is  in  a  straight  line,  and  can  be  followed 
with  something  like  certainty.  Baptism  was  in  the  beginning  a  literal 
bath,  an  entire  immersion.  By  the  close  of  the  first  century  a  triple 
aspersion  of  water  upon  the  head  might  suffice  at  need.1  Originally  it 
included  the  idea  of  the  purification  of  the  soul  by  repentance  and  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  To  this  idea  was  added,  in  the  second  century, 
that  of  a  sacrament  of  initiation  and  illumination  analogous  to  those  of 
the  pagan  mysteries.2  Finally,  as  we  shall  see,  innovations  were  made 

'"Teaching  of  the  Apostles,"  vii:  'E&»  5t  dn<t>6repa  n^  ?xfl*(running  water  or  warm 
water)  tK\eov  cb  rijv  K«£aXV  rpls  vSup  eh  6vo(ia.  irarpbt  icai  vlov  xa.1  aylov  irveAfuiTOS. 

1  With  regard  to  the  relation  between  the  Christian  sacraments,  baptism  and  the 
Eucharist,  and  the  pagan  mysteries,  see  the  work  of  Gustav  Anrich,  "  Grosskirche, 
Gnosticismus,  und  Mysterienwesen,"  1894.  Justin  Martyr  calls  baptism  0(£r«r/xof, 
a  word  which  appears  to  have  been  borrowed  from  the  language  of  the  mysteries,  1 
"  Apol.,"  65.  See,  however,  Heb.  x.  22-32;  Epb.  L  17-19. 


62     BAPTISMAL  FORMULA  AND  APOSTOLIC  SYMBOL 

in  the  invocation  pronounced  over  the  head  of  the  persons  baptised. 
Change  is  everywhere,  fixity  nowhere. 

Was  the  institution  of  baptism  the  act  of  Jesus  himself?  In  the 
present  condition  of  the  text  it  is  impossible  to  prove  it.  The  command 
of  Matthew  xxviii.  19,  which  seems  to  attribute  it  to  him,  is  not  only 
posthumous,  but  even  appears  late  in  the  tradition  of  the  Apostolic 
Church.  No  other  Gospel  contains  it.1 

If  Jesus  had  left  so  formal  a  commandment  to  his  apostles,  could 
Paul  have  written  to  the  Corinthians  that  Christ  had  sent  him,  not  to 
baptise,  but  to  preach  the  Gospel,  and  could  he  have  thanked  God  that 
he  had  baptised  with  his  own  hands  only  three  or  four  persons  in 
Corinth?  Would  he  not  rather  have  had  reason  to  reproach  himself 
for  having  failed  in  an  express  command  of  Christ? 

Baptism  with  water  dates  back  to  John  the  Baptist.  Jesus  con- 
sidered this  rite,  which  was  preparatory  to  the  Messianic  kingdom,  as 
willed  by  God,2  but  anterior  to  the  new  covenant  and  foreign  to  it.  The 
disciples  at  first  practised  it  in  the  same  spirit  as  the  Forerunner,  hav- 
ing in  view,  as  he  had,  the  approaching  advent  of  the  triumphant  Mes- 
siah. 

The  Messiah's  baptism  was  to  be  of  a  different  nature.  It  was 
the  "  baptism  with  the  Spirit  and  with  fire,"  which  in  John's  discourses 
was  distinctly  opposed  to  the  baptism  with  water.8  It  is  the  only  baptism 
with  which  Paul  is  concerned.  In  the  beginning  the  two  were  very 
clearly  distinguished,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  book  of  the  "  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,"  where  the  effusion  of  the  Spirit  sometimes  precedes  and  some- 
times follows  the  baptism  with  water,  with  no  necessary  connection 
between  them.4  But  as  by  degrees  the  Church  and  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  became  identified,  entrance  into  the  latter  came  to  be  confounded 
with  entrance  into  the  former;  the  bath  of  purification  in  view  of  the 
Kingdom  became  confused  with  the  effusion  of  the  Spirit,  the  warrant 

1  Appendix  XIX.  "Matt,  iii,  11,  and  paral.;  Acts  L  5. 

'Mark  xi.  30,  and  paral.  4 Appendix  XX. 


BAPTISMAL  FORMULA  AND  APOSTOLIC  SYMBOL     53 

and  principle  of  eternal  life,  and  the  sign  took  the  place  of  the  thing 
signified.  By  this  swift  descent,  second-century  Christianity  very  soon 
reached  the  superstitious  idea  of  the  opus  operatum.1 

From  the  accordant  testimony  of  Paul's  letters  and  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  it  appears  evident  that,  originally,  baptism  was  admin- 
istered simply  "  in  the  name  of  Christ."  2  The  new  convert  who  received 
it  in  this  form  confessed  his  faith  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus.  And 
as  the  Christ  whom  above  all  Paul  preached  was  the  Christ  who  died 
and  rose  again,  this  apostle  saw  in  baptism  a  representation  in  action 
of  the  intimate  union  of  the  believer  with  Christ  in  his  death  and  resur- 
rection, so  that  the  baptised  person  seemed  to  be  buried  with  Christ 
and  to  rise  with  him  to  the  life  of  the  Spirit.  Later,  especially  in  the 
pagan  world,  this  elementary  form  appeared  to  be  no  longer  sufficient. 
Catechumens  of  pagan  origin  needed  to  be  converted  to  the  true  and 
living  God,  the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  be  initiated  into  the 
regenerating  virtues  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  well  as  into  the  redemption 
wrought  by  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  all  men.  In  the  churches 
founded  by  Paul,  such  was  the  threefold  object  of  the  instruction  given 
to  catechumens,  and  such  the  faith  which  they  professed  at  their  bap- 
tism, summed  up  in  the  formula  which  has  become  traditional:  Into  the 
name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit. 

By  degrees  the  terms  of  this  formula  were  developed  until  finally 
it  became  the  well-known  symbol  called  "  Of  the  Apostles."  But  this 
was  a  work  of  time  and  effort. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  second  century  we  find  a  rule  of  faith 
which  the  converts  doubtless  recited  on  the  occasion  of  their  baptism 
and  admission  to  the  Church.  It  was  thus  worded: 

/  believe  in  God,  Father  Almighty,  and  Christ  Jesus  his  Son,  our 

Lord,  born  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  of  Mary,  virgin,  Crucified  under 

Pontius  Pilate  and  buried,  on  the  third  day  rose  from  the  dead,  Ascended 

into  heaven,  Sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  From  whence  he 

1  Appendix  XXI.  2  Appendix  XXII. 


54     BAPTISMAL  FORMULA  AND  APOSTOLIC  SYMBOL 
cometh  to  judge  quick  and  dead.     And  in  Holy  Spirit,  Holy  Church, 
Remission  of  sins,  Resurrection  of  the  flesh.1 

It  is  not  yet  precisely  the  Apostolic  Symbol;  several  articles  are 
incomplete,  and  others  are  wanting.  But  it  is  the  first  form  of  that 
symbol,  and  it  very  evidently  owes  its  structure  to  the  threefold  baptismal 
formula.  To  each  of  its  terms,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  have  been 
added  explanations  and  more  complete  determinations,  to  clarify  the 
faith  of  catechumens. 

What  were  the  causes  of  this  development?  They  may  be  traced 
back  to  two:  on  one  hand  the  progress  of  catechetical  instruction,  the 
necessity  of  giving  to  converts  from  paganism  a  more  detailed  and  posi- 
tive knowledge  of  what  was  considered  the  essence  of  the  Christian  faith ; 
on  the  other,  and  especially,  carefulness  to  avoid  Gnostic  heresies  and 
build  up  a  protecting  barrier  between  such  and  the  universal  Church. 
It  is  not  by  an  unimportant  coincidence  that  this  rule  of  faith  was  put 
in  force  precisely  in  those  years  between  135  and  150,  when  Valentinian 
and  Marcion  were  agitating  this  great  Church  with  their  preaching, 
and  Justin  Martyr  was  opposing  them  with  the  most  violent  polemics. 
In  this  same  period,  as  we  shall  show  in  the  following  chapter,  the 
monarchical  Episcopate  appeared  at  Rome,  with  Pius  I.  Everything 
there  tends  to  show  that  in  the  last  years  of  the  age  of  Hadrian  and 
Antoninus  the  Pious,  the  community  in  Rome  was  passing  through  a 
profound  crisis,  whence  emerged  clearly  defined  doctrine,  concentrated 
ecclesiastical  authority,  and  established  discipline.2 

That  which,  with  singular  energy  and  order,  was  going  on  in  Rome, 
was  also  taking  place  in  all  the  great  churches  of  the  time.  It  was 
everywhere  necessary  to  instruct  the  simple,  to  provide  them  with  a 
criterion  of  the  true  faith  which  should  be  easy  to  remember,  and  to 
erect  a  barrier  against  the  confusion  and  absolutism  of  Gnostic  specula- 
tion or  the  speculations  of  Montanism.  Everywhere,  therefore,  rules  of 
faith  were  being  roughly  blocked  out,  which,  being  naturally  built  upon 
1  Appendix  XXIII.  s  Appendix  XXIV. 


GENESIS   OF   CATHOLIC   THEORY    OF    TRADITION   55 

the  threefold  baptismal  formula,  strongly  resembled  one  another  without 
coinciding  in  details.  Traces  of  more  or  less  developed  professions  of  faith 
may  be  found  in  the  later  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  especially  in 
the  Epistles  called  Pastoral,  and  in  the  writings  of  Clement  of  Rome, 
Polycarp,  Ignatius,  Hernias,  Justin  Martyr.1  Sometimes  they  are  shorter, 
sometimes  more  explicit.  One  article  is  strongly  supported  because  its 
existence  had  been  threatened;  another  is  passed  by  in  silence  because 
it  has  in  no  sense  been  a  subject  of  dispute.  In  short,  down  to  about 
the  year  150,  the  symbol  recited  by  catechumens  varied* according  to  time 
and  place;  it  was  in  process  of  elaboration  and  development.  In  the 
end  it  attained  its  most  clearly  defined  form  in  Rome,  and  from  thence 
it  was  carried  into  the  East,  and  especially  into  the  West.  It  took  pos- 
session of  the  Churches  of  Africa  and  of  Gaul,  where  Tertullian  and 
Irenseus  found  it  strongly  intrenched  under  the  name  and  with  the 
authority  of  "  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles,"  and  "  Rule  of  the  Truth." 


Genesis  of  the  Catholic  Theory  of  Tradition 

THE  notion  of  tradition  implies  three  terms:  a  point  of  departure,  a 
point  of  arrival,  and  the  link  that  connects  them.  In  the  Catholic 
theory  the  point  of  departure  is  God  himself;  the  point  of  arrival  the 
Church  militant;  the  connecting  link,  the  apostles  and  the  legitimate 
line  of  their  successors.  The  intermediate  link  is  therefore  the  essential 
term.  On  one  side  the  apostles  take  hold  on  Christ  and  so  on  God; 
on  the  other  they  make  part  of  the  Church  and  represent  it.  It  is  by 
their  means  that  revelation,  given  from  heaven  and  coming  to  men, 
remains  divine  to  the  very  end,  without  perversion  or  corruption.  Apos- 
tolicity  must  therefore  be  the  inevitable  and  essential  mark  of  Catholic 

1 1  Tim.  ii.  5,  iii.  16,  and  especially  vi.  12,  13;  2  Tim.  i.  14,  ii.  2;  Titus  i.  9;  Clem. 
Rom.,  1  Cor.  58;  Ignatius,  "  Epist.  ad  Trail.,"  9;  "  Ad  Smyrn,"  1;  "  Ad  Eph.,"  7;  "  Ad 
Magn.,"  11;  Polycarp,  "  Ad  Philipp.,"  2;  Justin  Martyr,"  1  Ap.,"  61;  "Dial.,"  30. 


66   GENESIS   OF   CATHOLIC   THEORY    OF   TRADITION 
tradition.     Here  we  touch  the  very  corner  stone  of  the  infallibility  of 
the  Church. 

This  dogmatic  theory  of  tradition  presents  itself  for  the  first  time 
defined  and  settled  in  the  form  of  an  infallible  and  sovereign  law,  in  the 
writings  of  Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  and  Hyppolitus.  These  writers  were  led 
to  formulate  it  by  their  polemic  against  Gnosticism  and  other  heresies 
of  their  time.  With  perfect  candour  they  explain  its  genesis.  They 
forged  this  weapon  on  the  field  of  battle,  to  insure  a  victory  that  had 
been  long  uncertain. 

What  subjects  were  in  dispute  in  those  theological  frays  of  the 
second  century,  whose  turmoils  and  confusion  give  an  idea  of  chaos? 
The  question  was  of  the  true  doctrine,  and  how  it  could  be  recognised. 
To  consent  to  discussion  with  teachers  of  heresy  was  dangerous  on  many 
considerations.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  no  hope  of  either  refuting 
or  convincing  them.  In  the  domain  of  science  or  exegesis,  Catholic 
bishops,  with  all  their  admirable  virtues,  were  weak  before  a  Valentinian 
or  a  Marcion.  Besides,  this  would  be  to  descend  to  the  shifting  sand 
of  individual  and  subjective  opinion,  with  its  endlessly  renewed  philo- 
sophical processes.  Should  they  appeal  to  the  apostolic  writings,  the 
canon  of  which  the  Church  had  but  then  completed?  But  here  they 
would  encounter  that  criticism  which  the  adversaries  so  freely  exercised 
upon  both  the  text  and  the  origin  of  these  writings.  Or  indeed,  like 
Marcion,  they  had  a  different  collection,  or  the  texts  were  not  the  same, 
or  finally,  the  interpretation  of  them  differed  indefinitely,  thanks  to  the 
allegorical  method  then  everywhere  in  use,  which  permitted  either  party, 
in  all  good  conscience,  to  make  the  Scriptures  speak  in  his  own  favour. 
It  was  as  difficult  to  come  to  an  agreement  upon  the  meaning  of  the 
text  as  upon  the  truth  of  the  doctrine,  since,  in  all  the  camps,  it  was 
in  fact  the  latter  which  determined  the  former.  Therefore  Tertullian 
could  not  admit  of  an  appeal  to  the  Scriptures,  in  a  discussion  with 
heretics. 

The  dispute  was,  indeed,  over  the  Scriptures  themselves,  and  this 


GENESIS   OF   CATHOLIC   THEORY   OF   TRADITION   C7 

being  the  case,  it  could  only  be  decided  by  a  superior  authority.  Thus 
at  this  juncture  the  authority  of  tradition  was  practically  made  superior 
to  that  of  the  Bible,  for  it  was  tradition  which  had  decided  as  to  the 
contents  of  the  sacred  canon,  had  chosen  between  the  books,  those  which 
were  to  be  admitted  to  it  and  those  which  must  be  excluded  from  it, 
and  tradition  still  gave  the  rule  for  rightly  using  and  rightly  under- 
standing them.1 

If  the  tradition  of  the  Church  was  to  be  final  arbiter  of  controversy, 
it  must  needs  take  on  definite  form  and  find  a  popular  mode  of  expres- 
sion. We  have  already  seen  that  about  the  same  period  it  attained  to 
both  in  the  baptismal  profession  of  faith.2 

Such  is  "  the  sovereign  law,"  **  the  canon  of  truth."  Irenaeus  and 
Tertullian  thus  reason  about  it:  The  mark  of  the  truth  of  a  doctrine 
is  its  legitimacy.  Legitimacy  shows  itself  in  antiquity.  Heresies  are 
false  because  they  are  new.  Rising  up  to  disturb  the  churches  and 
attacking  established  tradition,  they  prove  by  the  very  lateness  of  their 
appearance  that  the  tradition  existed  before  them.  The  warrant  of 
the  true  faith  is  found  in  all  the  apostolic  churches,  Rome,  Ephesus, 
Corinth,  Antioch;  in  the  uninterrupted  succession  of  their  bishops,  the 
first  of  whom  were  instituted  by  the  apostles  themselves,  and  received 
from  them  the  authentic  faith  which  it  was  their  duty  to  preach.  To 
hold  fast  to  this  tradition  without  wavering  is  the  necessary  line  of 
conduct,  the  rule  which  all  must  follow.  The  sole  verity  which  we  must 
believe  is  that  which  in  no  respect  differs  from  it.  Outside  of  tradition 
there  is  only  uncertainty  and  confusion.3 

Polemics  were  thus  grandly  simplified  and  put  within  the  reach  of 

1  Irenaeus,  "  Adv.  Her.,"  iii.  2;  Tertullian,  "  De  Pres.  Hasr.,"  17. 

*When  the  advocates  of  Church  tradition  undertake  to  explain  what  they  under- 
stand by  this  word,  they  simply  recite  the  symbol  or  rule  of  faith  at  the  time  in 
force,  which  they  consider  as  transmitted  by  the  Apostles  to  their  successors,  and 
handed  down  to  themselves  by  the  uninterrupted  series  of  bishops.  Irenanis,  I.  10,  1, 
III.  4,  2;  Tertullian,  "  De  Praescrip.  Haer.,"  IS,  20f.;  "Adv.  Prax.,"  9. 

'Tertullian,  the  entire  treatise  "  De  Praescriptione";  Origen,  "  D«  Brineip.,"  I. 
Praef.,  f  and  4;  Hippolytus,  "  Pbilosophoumena." 


68  GENESIS   OF   CATHOLIC   THEORY    OF   TRADITION 

the  most  humble  believer.  There  was  no  longer  any  need  of  discussing 
the  intrinsic  proofs  of  truth;  it  bore  an  infallible  external  mark — its 
legal  description  given  by  the  bishops  themselves. 

By  the  same  act  the  Church,  which  had  been  a  party  to  the  suit, 
was  made  judge  of  last  appeal.  She  no  longer  had  to  plead  at  the 
bar,  but  only  to  pronounce  sentence.  She  no  longer  disputed  with 
heretics,  she  condemned  them.  By  this  juristic  expedient,  which  Ter- 
tullian  so  well  defined  and  named  prescription,  heretics  were  already 
barred  out.  They  came  too  late.  The  mere  fact  that  they  were  outside 
of  the  tradition  of  the  Church  sufficed  to  prove  them  outside  of  the 
truth.  From  Tertullian  to  Bossuet  the  argument  never  varied ;  it  may 
thus  be  summed  up :  "  New  idea :  certain  sign  of  revolt  and  error." 

What  a  distance  had  been  travelled  from  Papias.to  Tertullian,  and 
how  had  the  very  idea  of  tradition  been  metamorphosed!  Papias,  too, 
had  made  appeal  to  "  the  living  and  enduring  word,"  and  preferred  it 
to  the  single  books,  born  of  the  occasion,  which  circulated  in  his  time. 
But  what  he  thus  sought  was  a  historic  method  of  increasing  his  knowl- 
edge. He  did  not  appeal  to  the  juridical  decision  of  authority,  based 
upon  the  regular  order  of  episcopal  succession  since  the  apostles,  he 
interrogated  the  old  men  who  had  seen  Peter  or  John  or  Andrew  or 
Philip  or  any  other  of  the  first  disciples  of  the  Lord,  and  could  repeat 
their  discourses.  Fifty  years  later,  the  point  of  view  and  method  of 
procedure  of  Tertullian  and  the  Church  were  entirely  different.  The 
Church  had  left  the  field  of  history,  and  intrenched  itself  in  that  of 
dogma.  Tradition  was  no  longer  testimony  to  be  gathered,  it  was  an 
official  rule  of  faith,  which  the  bishops  first  promulgated  and  then  applied 
as  apostolic.1 

To  raise  a  new  historic  tradition  to  the  rank  of  supernatural  tradi- 
tion and  divine,  permanent  inspiration  in  the  Church  itself,  one  must 
either  forget  history  or  do  violence  to  it.  The  Catholic  theory  rests 
upon  three  premisses  which  are  not  only  undemonstrable,  but  fictitious : 
1.  That  the  apostles  drew  up  and  left  to  their  successors  an  unchange- 

1  Appendix  XXV, 


GENESIS   OF   CATHOLIC   THEORY   OF   TRADITION   69 

able  formulary  of  Christian  faith.  2.  That  succeeding  generations 
added  nothing,  subtracted  nothing,  changed  nothing,  as  to  the  customs 
and  ideas  which  they  inherited*  3.  That  bishops  are  the  successors  of 
the  apostles  and  heirs  of  their  gifts  and  privileges. 

These  three  affirmations  are  wholly  illusory,  and  a  single  reading  of 
the  original  texts  is  enough  to  dissipate  them  irrecoverably.  But  at 
the  end  of  the  second  century  historic  criticism  did  not  exist.  Men  lived 
in  the  supernatural,  and  the  stream  of  the  marvellous  flowed  full.  In 
such  a  time  dogma  becomes  a  prolific  mother  of  legends.  The  reflection 
of  the  idea  then  dominant  transforms  the  vision  of  the  past.  History 
is  altered  wherever  it  shows  itself  contrary  to  the  dogma ;  where  silence 
would  do  it  harm  it  is  made  to  speak.  It  is  common  enough  to  see  chil- 
dren who  have  attained  years  of  strength  fostering  and  caring  for  the 
aged  father  to  whom  they  owe  life.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  the  cen- 
turies, the  pious  legends  of  tradition  came  forward  to  legitimise  and 
defend  the  dogma  of  which  they  were  born. 

These  legends,  which,  we  must  remember,  were  the  product  and  com- 
plement of  the  Catholic  theory  of  tradition,  came  into  being  at  three 
points,  and  from  generation  to  generation  developed  along  three  parallel 
lines,  with  ever  greater  definiteness  and  wealth  of  embellishment. 

1.  The  first  were  the  episcopal  lists,  which,  from  about  the  year  180, 
began  to  be  formed  in  all  the  great  churches  to  establish  the  line  of 
apostolic  succession  in  material  and  tangible  form.  To  this  end  tradi- 
tional memories  were  drawn  upon,  and  names  were  borrowed  from  the 
apostolic  writings.  Starting  with  Eleutherus,  who  died  in  188,  we  may 
go  back  by  names  sufficiently  authentic  as  far  as  Sixtus  or  Alexander, 
about  the  year  130;  but  back  of  this  the  lists  of  the  early  Popes  or 
bishops  of  Rome  have  absolutely  no  value.  The  reason  is  simple.  There 
was  no  episcopate  in  Rome,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word,  before  the 
reign  of  Hadrian,  as  we  shall  presently  see. 

There  was  need  of  these  official  lists  in  the  polemic  against  the  Gnos- 
tic doctors  and  Montanist  prophets;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  experience 


60  GENESIS   OF   CATHOLIC   THEORY   OF   TRADITION 

that  documents  of  which  any  authority  finds  a  practical  need  are  always 
produced.1 

2.  The  twelve  Jewish  apostles  of  Jesus  appear  to  have  restricted 
their  teaching  to  their  own  people.     Paul  gives  them  no  part  in  the 
evangelisation  of  the  pagan  world.     It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  his- 
tory that  they  should  have  become  from  the  close  of  the  second  century 
the  traditional  patrons  and  authorities  of  the  great  churches  in  whose 
foundation  they  had  almost  no  part,  while  Paul  and  his  fellow-labourers, 
Titus,  Sosthenes,  Aquila,  Apollos,  those  daring  pioneers  of  the  new 
religion,  are  forgotten,  or  relegated  to  the  second  rank  and  to  obscurity. 
Paul  is  despoiled  by  John  in  Ephesus  and  Asia,  as  in  Antioch  and  Rome 
by  Peter,  whose  humble  and  docile  satellite  he  becomes.     This  historic 
paradox  is  explained  by  the  legends  which  came  into  being  at  the  epoch 
at  which  we  have  now  arrived.     They  show  us  the  Twelve  assembled  at 
Jerusalem,  dividing  among  themselves  the  map  of  the  world,  and  then 
setting  forth,  each  to  conquer,  with  the  strong  aid  of  miracle  and  at 
last  of  martyrdom,  the  province  which  to  him  had  been  assigned.    From 
the  forensic  standpoint  of  the  theory  of  tradition,  it  was  necessary  that 
the  episcopal  order  should  everywhere  find  the  name  of  an  apostle  to 
which  to  fasten  its  initial  link. 

3.  Finally,  to  all  these  legends  must  be  added,  as  tending  to  the 
same  end,  those  which  grew  up  around  the  Symbol  of  the  Apostles.     In 
the  beginning  the  title  apostolic,  applied  to  a  traditional  rule  of  faith, 
was  doubtless  intended  only  to  declare  the  essential  conformity  of  this 
faith  to  that  preached  by  the  apostles.     But  soon  the  people  began  to 
understand  it  in  a  stricter  and  more  literal  sense.     About  the  middle 
of  the  third  century  it  was  said  and  believed  in  Rome  that  the  symbol 
had  been  brought  to  the  capital  of  the  empire  by  Peter  himself,  and 
consequently  that  it  dated  back  to  the  very  foundation  of  the  Church. 
Ambrose,  bishop  of  Milan,  confirmed  this  pious  legend,  which  Rufinus 
a  little  later  embellished.      Before  separating,  says  this  writer,   the 
apostles,  with  a  view  to  defining^  the  faith  which  they  were  about  to 

*  Appendix  XXVL 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  THEORY         61 

preach  throughout  the  universe,  conjointly  put  into  form  the  terms  of 
the  symbol,  which  each  one  then  carried  with  him.  But  a  legend  is  like 
a  plant,  continually  putting  out  new  branches  and  flowers.  Isidore  of 
Seville  knows  much  more  about  this  one  than  his  predecessors.  He  tells 
how  the  apostles  met  in  conclave  in  Jerusalem.  Each  one  of  them, 
moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  rising  in  turn,  uttered,  in  the  silence  of  the 
others,  an  article  of  the  Credo.  This  is  why  the  Creed  has  twelve 
articles.  It  became  possible  even  to  set  over  against  each  of  the  articles 
the  name  of  the  apostle  who  proclaimed  it.  The  Roman  Catechism  at 
last  adopted  and  consecrated  the  whole  legend.1  What  more  striking 
example  could  be  cited  of  the  birth,  evolution,  and  triumph  of  a  religious 
tradition ! 

VI 

Development  of  the  Catholic  Theory 

AT  the  very  time  when  the  principle  of  the  sovereign  authority  of  tradi- 
tion was  being  so  brilliantly  posited  over  against  heresy,  a  collection  of 
the  writings  which  had  come  down  from  the  apostolic  age  was  being 
formed  in  the  Church,  under  the  impulse  of  the  same  circumstances,  and 
in  view  of  the  same  necessities,  and  was  canonised  as  the  body  of  the 
**  Books  of  the  New  Testament." 

Held  as  supernaturally  inspired,  these  books,  which  passed  as  being 
either  by  the  apostles  or  their  immediate  disciples,  could  not  be  invested 
with  less  prestige  and  credit  than  the  unwritten  tradition.  Therefore 
they  at  once  found  a  place  beside  it  in  common  veneration.  The  two 
authorities  were  on  an  equal  footing,  and  thus  far  held  one  another  in 
equilibrium.2  It  even  happened  very  often  that  those  who  sacrificed 
Scripture  to  tradition,  in  face  of  the  Gnostic  doctors  made  appeal  to  it 
against  ecclesiastical  authority,  or  the  customs  of  a  too  obliging  tra- 
dition. It  was  Tertullian  himself  who  uttered  this  word,  trenchant 

'Catech.   Rom.    See,  especially,  Nicholas,  "La  Symbole  des  Apotres,"  1867. 
1  Appendix  XXVII. 


62         DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   CATHOLIC  THEORY 

as  a  sword  edge,  "  Christ  said :  I  am  the  Truth ;  he  said  not,  I  am  the 
custom ! "  1 

Such  an  utterance  offered  a  fecund  and  necessary  principle  of  criti- 
cism for  a  tradition  which  was  destined  to  become  ever  more  densely 
incrusted  with  superstitions  in  succeeding  centuries.  But  it  came  too 
late,  and  even  those  who  repeated  it  broke  its  force  by  their  own  contradic- 
tions and  inconsistencies.  It  was  impossible  that  two  opposing  author- 
ities, constantly  at  war,  should  long  maintain  an  equal  footing.  With 
the  progress  that  the  priestly  hierarchy  and  ecclesiastical  centralisa- 
tion were  making,  it  was  easy  to  foresee  which  would  have  the  victory 
and  put  the  other  in  subordination.  What  more  convenient  way  of  justi- 
fying it  all  than  to  say  with  Pope  Leo  the  Great,  "  All  that  has  been 
received  in  the  custom  and  devotion  of  the  Church  should  be  considered 
as  derived  from  tradition  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 
The  descent  was  too  slippery  to  be  climbed  again  when  once  the  bottom 
was  reached.  He  who  from  many  points  of  view  may  be  called  a  biblical 
Doctor,  Augustine,  did  not  hesitate  to  write  by  way  of  silencing  the 
arguments  of  heretics :  "  I  should  not  believe  the  Gospel  if  the  authority 
of  the  Church  did  not  so  determine  me."  This  is  not  quite  the  same  as 
the  more  outspoken  avowal  of  a  modern  ultramontane,  but  it  prophesies 
and  prepares  for  it :  "  But  for  the  authority  of  the  Pope  I  should  not 
put  the  Bible  above  the  Koran." 

To  rescue  the  Church  from  the  exclusive  influence  of  Augustine  and 
his  ideas,  and  to  bring  it  back  to  the  middle  path,  was  apparently  the 
reason  why  Vincent  of  Lerins  made  himself  the  theorist  of  Catholic 
tradition,  and  put  forth  the  famous  treatise  which  has  become  the  classic 
authority  on  the  subject.  His  definition  of  the  principle  is  well  known: 
"  That  which  has  been  everywhere,  always,  and  by  everyone  believed, 

1  Appendix  XXVIII. 

'Sermo  77,  "  De  Jejunio  Pentecost.,"  2.    For  the  express  and  definitive  subor- 
dination of  the  Scriptures,  Vincent  of  Lerins,  "  Commonitorium,"  2. 
•"Contra  Epist.  Fundamenti,"  5. 
4  K.  Hase,  "  Handb.  d.  protest.  Polemik,"  5th  ed.,  p.  81,  1891. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   CATHOLIC  THEORY         63 

that  is  truly  and  properly  Catholic."  Tradition,  to  be  authoritative, 
has,  therefore,  three  marks  or  criterions  by  which  it  may  be  recognised: 
universality,  antiquity,  and  the  consent  of  all.  On  this  basis  doctrinal 
truth  was  finished  and  perfect  in  the  Church  from  the  beginning,  and 
remains  the  same  through  all  time  and  space.  From  this  point  of  view, 
we  may  ask,  Can  there  still  be  any  question  of  the  development  of  the 
Christian  spirit  in  the  Church?  The  author  replies:  The  Church  guards 
the  deposit  of  faith  which  has  been  confided  to  her ;  she  changes  nothing 
in  it,  adds  nothing  to  it,  subtracts  nothing  from  it ;  but  applies  herself 
to  express  in  new  language  the  ancient  verities  (non  nova,  sed  nove),  to 
confirm  that  which  had  been  clearly  defined,  to  define  more  clearly  that 
which  may  have  remained  obscure.  There  will  be  progress  in  the  form, 
but  no  change  in  the  matter.1 

This  fine  definition  has  only  one  fault,  that  of  remaining  abstract 
and  formal.  Where  are  we  to  find  this  ancient  and  universal  doctrine? 
What  articles  of  faith,  what  rites,  are  marked  with  the  triple  seal  here 
named?  Which  are  the  documents  and  authentic  organs  of  this  im- 
mutable and  yet  progressive  tradition?  The  Middle  Ages  are  at  one 
in  finding  them  in  the  "  Acts  "  of  the  Councils,  the  "  Decrees  "  of  the 
Fathers,  and  the  general  practice  of  the  Church.2  But  among  the  Coun- 
cils, which  are  ecumenical  and  which  are  not?  Are  all  opinions  of  the 
Fathers  authoritative?  And  if  not,  how  distinguish  those  which  must 
be  received  from  those  which  must  be  rejected?  Finally,  among  the 
practices  of  the  Church,  is  there  no  distinction  between  the  obligatory 
and  the  optional  ? 8  Truly,  this  body  of  Catholic  tradition,  fluid  and 
fleeting,  is  of  Protean  vagueness.  But  why  should  this  surprise  us?  By 
its  nature  tradition  is  alive  and  fruitful,  it  is  always  indefinite,  because 
it  is  never  exhausted.  Checked  and  fixed,  it  becomes  as  a  bond  or  a  fet- 
ter; left  fluid,  mobile,  uncertain,  it  lends  itself  admirably  to  the  ex- 

1  Commonitorium    pro    cathol.    Ecclesiae    antiquitate    et    universalitate    profanas 
omnium  haereticorum  novitates,  3  (al  4).    Of.  Augustine,  "  De  Baptism.,"  iv.  24. 

2  Appendix  XXIX. 
•Appendix  XXX. 


*4         DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   CATHOLIC  THEORY 

igericics  of  ecclesiastical  government,  which  alone  has  the  right  to  in- 
terpret and  apply  it.  This  is  why  the  Church  of  Rome  has  always 
obstinately  defended  it.  The  infallibility  of  tradition  is  the  omnipotence 
of  the  hierarchy.1 

The  theory  of  Vincent  of  Lerins  was  accepted  until  the  seventeenth 
century.  Bossuet  gave  it  new  life  and  developed  it  with  his  usual  elo- 
quence in  his  polemic  against  the  Protestants :  "  Catholic  truth,  coming 
from  God,  had  from  the  first  his  perfection.  The  faith  simply  speaks, 
the  Holy  Spirit  sheds  abroad  pure  enlightenment,  and  the  truth  which 
he  teaches  has  always  a  uniform  language.  Any  variation  in  the  ex- 
position of  the  faith  is  a  mark  of  falsity  and  inconsistency."  The  entire 
History  of  Variations  rests  upon  this  foundation.  Heresy  itself  is 
always  a  novelty,  however  old  it  may  be ;  it  is  continually  making  innova- 
tions, and  changes  its  doctrine  every  day.  The  Catholic  Church,  on 
the  contrary,  immutably  attached  to  its  decrees  once  promulgated,  show- 
ing not  the  slightest  variation  since  the  origin  of  Christianity,  manifests 
herself  as  a  church  built  upon  the  rock,  always  secure  in  herself,  or 
rather  in  the  promises  which  she  has  received,  firm  in  her  principles,  and 
guided  by  a  spirit  which  never  contradicts  itself.2 

A  great  change  was  coming  upon  the  world  and  the  Church.  The 
progress  of  historic  investigation,  and  the  interior  evolution  of  Catholi- 
cism itself,  were  to  leave  this  claim  of  immutability  without  defence,  and 
compel  the  theory  of  tradition  to  pass  through  a  final  transformation. 

The  moderns  have  acquired  the  historic  sense,  and  this  truly  new 
faculty  of  understanding  and  reconstructing  the  past  has  given  them 
a  new  vision.  Nothing  endures  without  being  transformed.  Life  is  only 
a  process  of  rejecting  ancient  things  and  assimilating  things  that  are 
new.  How  could  anyone  maintain  that  the  Church  has  lasted  eighteen 

'Tfie  utterance  of  Pius  IX  will  be  remembered:  "La  traditione  sono  to."  He 
proved  it  by  promulgating,  in  1854,  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. 

* "  Histoire  des  Variations  des  Egl.  prot.,"  preface  and  conclusion.  See,  also, 
"  Premier  avertissement  aux  Prot.,"  "  Exposition  de  la  doctrine  catholique,"  2d  ed., 
1679;  "Conference  avec  M.  Claude." 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   CATHOLIC  THEORY         65 

centuries  without  varying?  Where  in  Christian  antiquity  were  the 
dogmas  which  the  men  of  our  own  generation  have  seen  brought  to  life, 
that  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  Mary,  or  that  of  the  infallibility  of 
the  Pope?  Or  even  purgatory  and  the  theory  of  indulgences,  the  seven 
sacraments,  the  reservation  of  the  eucharistic  cup  from  the  Christian 
people,  auricular  confession,  obligatory  celibacy,  the  priesthood,  and 
the  Mass  itself  in  its  present  form?  Is  there  in  the  dogmatic  of  the 
Church,  in  its  liturgy,  its  constitution,  a  single  formula,  a  single  rite,  a 
single  institution  whose  origin  cannot  be  told  and  the  date  of  its  birth 
noted?  And  have  we  not  heard,  in  our  own  days,  that  Bossuet  himself, 
if  he  had  not  repented,  would  have  died  a  heretic? 

There  were  two  factors  in  the  theory  of  Vincent  of  Lerins,  and  the 
Church  had  received  two  graces  to  enable  her  to  accomplish  her  mission 
as  the  guardian  and  protector  of  the  truth :  the  grace  of  fidelity  in  con- 
serving the  primitive  faith,  the  grace  of  inspiration  and  discernment  to 
complete  this  faith,  as  time  might  demand,  and  make  it  always  and 
everywhere  victorious  over  error.  The  animating  spirit  of  the  Church 
is  not  only  receptive,  it  is  also  productive  and  revelatory.  The  second 
element  of  the  theory,  which  Bossuet  left  in  the  shade,  has  to  come  to 
the  front.  It  justifies  all  the  variations  of  history,  and  the  grace  of 
inspiration  absolves  the  Church  from  the  reproach  of  inconstancy  and 
infidelity. 

The  surprising  thing  is  not  that  this  transformation  has  taken  place, 
since  it  was  inevitable,  but  that  its  starting  point  and  historic  cause  come 
from  an  idea  of  Protestant  theology. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  Schleiermacher  singularly 
fathomed  and  verified  the  very  idea  of  tradition  by  spiritualising  it. 
He  represented  it  as  the  interior  soul,  the  very  conscience  of  every 
religious  society,  a  sort  of  characteristic  genius,  a  collective  spirit,  which, 
while  remaining  faithful  to  its  inner  nature,  manifested  itself  in  ever 
new  creations,  presided  over  the  development  of  the  society,  maintaining 
its  moral  identity,  and  assuring  to  generations  to  come  the  spiritual 


66         DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   CATHOLIC  THEORY 

heritage  of  generations  gone  by.  It  was  a  new  philosophy,  born  of  the 
contemplation  of  the  movement  of  history.1 

Immediately  the  most  eminent  Catholic  theologians  made  it  their 
own.  Moehler  2  in  Germany,  Newman  3  in  England,  and  many  learned 
men,  almost  everywhere,  developed  a  new  theory  of  tradition,  which  pre- 
vails at  the  present  day.  Like  a  family  or  a  nation,  the  Church  has  its 
own  characteristic  genius,  which  lives  and  is  active  in  her.  This  genius 
is  the  Spirit  of  the  prophets  and  the  apostles,  it  is  the  very  Spirit  of  God, 
which  Christ  promised  to  those  who  believe  in  him.  Eternally  creative 
power,  light  ever  new,  brilliantly  shining  in  the  darkness,  this  Spirit  re- 
news the  ancient  things,  and  brings  forth  from  them  things  that  are 
new ;  he  opens  the  closed  book  of  the  Scriptures  and  reveals  its  profound 
significance.  Thanks  to  him,  the  divine  revelation  is  not  a  dry  parch- 
ment in  the  archives  of  an  ever  receding  past,  it  becomes  real,  present, 
unlimited.  In  a  word,  Catholic  tradition  is  Christ  himself  reincarnate 
from  generation  to  generation  in  the  historic  Church,  which  is  his  body, 
and  carrying  on  through  all  the  ages  a  perpetual  ministry  of  mediation 
and  revelation.4 

The  old  line  of  argument  of  theologians  like  Bossuet,  Vincent  of 
Lerins,  Tertullian,  is  reversed.  The  pyramid  rests  upon  its  apex.  That 
which  was  the  conclusion  of  the  theory  has  become  its  premiss.  The 
Church  is  infallible  because  it  has  the  deposit  of  truth,  and  it  possesses 
the  truth  because  it  is  infallible.  The  circle  is  closed. 

An  interesting  observation  should  be  made  here:  taken  all  in  all,  the 
new  theory  is  the  most  dangerous  of  concessions  to  modern  ideas,  and  a 
complete  apotheosis  of  the  hierarchy. 

Upon  no  other  point  has  Roman  Catholic  theology  an  appearance 
of  greater  liberality,  of  closer  reconciliation  with  idealistic  philosophy; 

1  Schleiermacher,  "  Der  christl.  Glaube  Einleitung,"  1821.  Of.  Marheineke,  "Das 
System  d.  Katholicismus  " ;  Hegel, "  Philosophic  der  Geschichte,"  complete  works,  vol.  9. 

2 "Die  Einheit  der  Kirche,"  2d  edit.;  "  Symbolik  oder  Darstellung  d.  dogmat.  Ge- 
gensaetze  der  Kathol.  u.  Protest.,"  vol.  9. 

* "  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,"  1848. 

*Perrone,  "Pradect.  Theol.,"  ii.  p.  24  ff.,  viii.  p.  30. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  THEORY         67 

as  a  matter  of  fact,  on  no  other  does  she  more  faithfully  obey  the  inner 
logic  of  the  Catholic  principle,  nor  better  serve  the  hopes  and  plans  now 
realised  by  the  Roman  curia. 

The  philosophic  concession  is  evident;  it  lies  in  the  assimilation  of 
the  life  and  genius  of  the  Church  with  the  life  and  genius  of  common- 
place people.  The  dogma  of  tradition  is  entirely  transformed.  It  is 
no  longer  a  determined  and  fixed  group  of  supernatural  verities,  once  for 
all  revealed.  The  Church  not  only  guards  the  doctrine,  she  produces 
it.  Dogma  is  born  and  developed  in  history,  and,  this  being  the  case, 
it  can  be  stated  and  explained  like  any  philosophical  production,  lit- 
erary or  moral.  That  which  had  appeared  to  be  fixed  and  solid  has 
become  mobile,  its  ice  has  liquefied,  and  the  stream  has  begun  to  flow. 
But  the  danger  is  perceived. 

From  the  absolute,  doctrine  has  fallen  into  the  relative.  There  is, 
then,  only  one  way  to  save  its  infallible  character,  the  Church  itself  must 
be  deified  that  all  its  works  and  productions  may  be  divine.  Therefore 
its  entire  history  has  been  canonised,  it  has  been  supernaturalised  in  its 
every  movement.  But  just  here  appears  the  radical  inconsistency  of 
the  system.  To  deify  history  is  to  deny  it  in  its  essence  and  reality.  To 
say  that  men  have  followed  in  one  another's  footsteps  laboriously  seek- 
ing for  truth,  and  have  continually  discovered  it  without  the  possibility 
of  ever  having  erred,  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  men  are  struggling 
to  do  well  and  attain  to  virtue  without  the  possibility  of  ever  falling 
into  sin.  Infallibility,  like  perfect  holiness,  makes  history  useless.  And, 
since  Catholic  theologians  compare  the  Church  with  the  divine-human 
person  of  Christ,  we  would  say  that  they  are  falling  into  the  error  of 
the  so-called  Monophysites,  who,  losing  the  human  nature  of  the  Saviour 
in  his  divine  nature,  leave  him  only  a  vain  appearance  of  humanity.  In 
the  same  way  Catholic  evolutionists  keep  only  a  vain  appearance  of  evo- 
lution. The  supernatural  dogma  destroys  the  sincerity  of  history. 

Let  us  follow  to  the  end.  In  the  strictest  sense,  the  Church  is  simply 
the  sacerdotal  hierarchy.  In  this  hierarchy  reside  the  soul  of  the 


68  THE  EPISCOPATE  AND  TRADITION 

Church,  its  infallible  tradition,  its  divine  inspiration.  And  as  the 
Christian  laity  formerly  abdicated  in  favour  of  the  hierarchy,  so  has  the 
episcopate  in  its  turn  abdicated  in  favour  of  the  papacy.  The  Church 
with  all  its  supernatural  graces,  its  privileges,  and  its  infallibility,  is 
summed  up  and  concentrated  in  the  person  of  the  supreme  Pontiff.  This 
person,  the  true  incarnation  of  the  Christ,  is  infallible,  like  the  Christ 
whose  place  he  holds.  The  Pope,  like  the  Church,  is  not  only  the 
guardian  and  interpreter  of  tradition,  he  may  at  any  moment  create 
it  by  his  inspired  utterance  and  infallible  decisions ;  he  is  the  living  tradi- 
tion. But,  this  being  so,  it  is  possible  to  say  that  there  is  no  longer 
any  tradition.  Thus  completing  itself,  the  Catholic  dogma  of  tradi- 
tion denies  its  own  existence.  Thenceforth  tradition  is  all  in  the  present ; 
no  one  can  make  appeal  to  it  against  the  Pope;  it  has,  indeed,  no 
longer  any  historic  content ;  it  is  only  a  label,  under  which  there  is  and 
must  ever  be  nothing  other  than  the  permanent  inspiration  and  infalli- 
bility of  the  Roman  Pontiff.1 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

THE    EPISCOPATE 
I 

The  Episcopate  and  Tradition 

IN  the  Catholic  system  tradition  is  to  the  episcopate  what  the  body 
is  to  the  soul.  Their  union  constitutes  the  living  organism  of  the 
Church.  Without  the  episcopate  tradition  would  remain  a  purely 
idealistic  conception,  something  analogous  to  the  Hegelian  notion  of 
the  spirit  realising  itself  and  being  evolved  in  history ;  it  would  not  be 
a  force  nor  a  rule  of  government.  Without  tradition  the  episcopate 
would  be  merely  a  political  caste  whose  reason  for  being  had  been  lost, 
and  whose  power  it  would  be  impossible  to  justify.  These  two  elements 

1  Appendix  XXXI. 


THE  EPISCOPATE  AND  TRADITION  69 

are  all  the  more  closely  allied  because  each,  being  without  integral 
strength,  draws  from  the  other  such  strength  as  it  actually  exercises. 

Tradition  is  only  another  name  for  the  well-known  theory  of  apostolic 
succession,  whence  the  Church  deduces  the  divine  right  of  bishops  to 
teach  truth  and  govern  souls.  It  is  therefore  natural  that  tradition 
and  episcopacy,  forming  an  organic  whole,  and  each  powerless  without 
the  other,  coming  into  being  at  the  same  time  and  from  the  same  his- 
toric causes,  should  have  developed  along  parallel  lines,  gaming  strength 
each  by  the  other,  till  their  common  ascendency  became  complete.  A 
twofold  illustration  of  the  supernatural  principle  underlies  the  process ; 
a  divine  act  of  institution  at  the  beginning,  leading  in  course  of  time  to 
the  theory  that  the  entire  institution  was  divine. 

Boldly  sketched  out  in  the  writings  of  Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  and 
Origen,  the  Catholic  theory  of  the  Episcopate  was  completed  by  Cyprian 
(248-258).  But  the  history  of  Catholicism  presents  this  singular  law, 
that  dogmatic  theory  always  lags  two  or  three  centuries  behind  the  prac- 
tical reality.  A  certain  condition  is  produced  by  the  action  of  general 
and  natural  causes ;  thence,  the  condition  being  established,  dogma  comes 
in  to  supernaturalise  and  consecrate  it  in  a  formula  assumed  to  be  primi- 
tive and  divine.  The  papacy  had  in  fact  exercised  supreme  magistracy 
in  matters  of  faith,  and  ultimate  jurisdiction  in  the  discipline  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  Church,  for  some  two  centuries  before  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil sanctioned  its  authority  by  the  dogma  of  the  personal  infallibility 
of  the  Pope,  and  made  the  Bishop  of  Rome  in  some  sort  the  unique  and 
universal  bishop.  So  was  it  with  the  episcopate.  We  can  trace  it  from 
its  coming  into  existence  in  the  reign  of  Trajan,  as  it  laboriously  estab- 
lishes itself  as  a  fact  in  one  after  another  of  the  great  churches;  the 
theory  that  it  had  been  supernaturally  instituted,  which  Cyprian  devel- 
oped and  the  Church  adopted,  came  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later. 

Setting  aside,  then,  all  dogmatic  prepossession,  it  is  meet  that  we 
should  go  to  history  and  to  history  alone  to  ask  for  the  origin  of  the 
episcopate ;  its  reply  will  be  all  the  more  clear  because  the  natural  evolu- 


70         FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COMMUNITY  OF  CORINTH 

tion  by  which  Christianity  passed  from  its  primitive  form  to  its  Catholic 
form  is  more  visible  and  striking  here  than  anywhere  else. 


History  of  the  First  Christian  Community  of  Corinth 

THIS  evolution  will  appear  in  fuller  light  if,  instead  of  drawing  a  general 
picture,  all  the  details  of  which  cannot  be  equally  clear,  we  take  the  his- 
tory of  a  particular  church  as  the  object  of  our  observation  and  study. 
The  Church  of  Corinth  affords  such  an  object.  Three  documents  of 
undoubted  authenticity  and  ascertained  date  permit  us  to  follow  its  inner 
life  for  more  than  a  century.1 

The  two  letters  of  the  Apostle  Paul  to  the  Corinthian  Christians, 
with  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  open  up  to 
us  the  first  beginnings  of  this  great  Church.  The  letters  followed 
by  five  or  six  years  Paul's  first  preaching  in  Achaia.  What  a  vivid 
and  stirring  picture  they  give  of  the  first  community,  its  customs  and 
its  temperament !  What  spontaneity  of  impulse  among  all  its  members ! 
What  fraternal  equality,  what  liberty,  what  superabundance  of  spiritual 
gifts  and  enthusiastic  manifestations,  which  as  yet  no  official  organisa- 
tion modified  or  reduced  to  order,  no  legal  authority  dominated  or  ruled.2 

While  insisting  upon  his  apostolic  authority,  Paul  neither  understood 
nor  exercised  it  as  any  other  than  a  moral  authority,  wholly  of  persua- 
sion. He  speaks  as  a  father  to  his  children,  as  an  experienced  guide 
to  new  beginners ;  always  recognising  and  insisting  upon  the  autonomy 
of  the  community  itself,  as  inwardly  ruled  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  which 
it,  like  himself,  had  received.3  Where  do  we  find  the  divinely  instituted 

I  These  three  documents,  which  cover  the  period  at  almost  equal  intervals,  are  the 
two  Epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  which  date  from  the  years  56  and  58  of  our 
era;  the  letter  of  Clement  of  Rome,  written  in  the  name  of  the  Church  of  Rome  to 
that  of  Corinth  about  the  year  96;  the  testimony  of  Hegesippus,  and  the  memoirs  of 
Bishop  Dionysius,  preserved  by  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  IV.  22,  1,  IV.  23,  9. 

I 1  Cor.  i.  10-12,  x-xiv. 

8 1  Cor.  iv.  14, 19,  v.  1-6,  ifl.  21-23,  2  Cor.  i.  24. 


FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COMMUNITY  OF  CORINTH         71 

bishop?  Where  is  the  legal  and  official  authority?  The  directing 
power  resides  nowhere  else  than  in  the  assembly  of  believers,  who  decide 
everything  in  last  resort,  after  longer  or  shorter  deliberation,  precisely 
as  in  the  little  Greek  republics,  where  all  citizens  having  the  right  to  vote 
assembled  in  the  Agora  to  judge  the  accused  and  regulate  public  affairs. 
Here,  as  there,  sentence  is  taken  by  the  majority  of  suffrages.1  In 
short,  we  are  facing  a  true  Christian  democracy,  with  all  the  charac- 
teristics and  all  the  faults  inherent  in  this  form  of  government. 

The  bond  which  formed  and  maintained  the  unity  of  the  association 
was  still  simply  of  the  mystical  and  moral  order.2  Christians  were 
"  sanctified,"  "  men  set  apart "  (ayiot),  forming  a  single  body,  because 
they  had  a  common  faith,  a  reciprocal  love,  and  a  common  hope.  Frater- 
nal exhortation,  or,  in  extreme  cases,  sequestration  from  the  assembly  of 
the  "  saints  "  and  abandonment  to  Satan,  were  the  sole  means  of  dis- 
cipline. Without  the  slightest  doubt,  here  as  in  every  social  body, 
various  functions  were  developed  spontaneously  to  respond  to  the  needs 
of  the  common  life.  The  Spirit  of  God  himself  provided  therefor, 
according  to  the  apostle,  by  the  diversity  of  gifts  and  vocations  which 
were  shed  abroad  in  the  Church.  These  gifts,  which  were  considered 
to  be  supernatural,  manifested  themselves  spontaneously  on  all  occasions, 
from  the  vocations  of  apostles,  prophets,  teachers,  administrators,  down 
to  gifts  of  healing  the  sick,  of  discerning  the  spirits,  and  of  speaking 
in  unknown  tongues.8 

Naturally,  at  this  period  we  find  no  trace  of  a  division  of  Christians 
into  clergy  and  laity.  All  formed  the  elect  people,  and  conversely,  this 
people  was  collectively  a  people  of  priests  and  prophets.  There  were 
no  passive  members.  The  most  humble  had  their  share  of  activity  and 

1 1  Cor.  iv.  3-5,  whence  ft  appears  that  the  Corinthian  Christians  arrogated  to 
themselves  even  the  right  to  Judge  of  the  apostolate  of  Paul  himself,  v.  4,  13,  vi.  1-5, 
2  Cor  ii.  6. 

2  The  Christians  together  formed  the  body  of  Christ,  because  the  spirit  of  Christ 
lived  in  each  of  them,  and  became  to  them  as  a  common  soul. — 1  Cor.  xii.  12  flf.  Cf. 
Gal.  iii.  27-29. 

•  1  Cor.  xii.  4-11,  28-30.    Cf.  Rom.  xii.  5-8. 


72        FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COMMUNITY  OF  CORINTH 

were  by  no  means  least  necessary.  The  zeal  of  all  was  extreme;  they 
needed  curb  and  discipline  rather  than  stimulus.1 

What  can  be  clearer  in  our  sources  than  this  free  administration  of 
the  community  by  itself,  in  the  absence  of  all  directing  power  super- 
imposed upon  it  by  supernatural  delegations?  Paul  spares  it  neither 
reproach  nor  counsel,  but  only  to  rouse  it  to  action,  not  to  substitute 
his  authority  for  its  own.  It  exercises  full  rights  of  jurisdiction  upon 
its  own  responsibility,  it  sits  in  supreme  tribunal,  chooses  its  delegates 
and  representatives,  organises  collections,  and  regulates  acts  of  worship. 
The  services  and  functions  of  the  common  life  were  at  first  freely  per- 
formed by  the  spontaneous  devotion  of  certain  brethren  whose  gifts, 
circumstances,  and  character  pointed  them  out  in  advance  for  the  work. 
But  it  is  certain  that  these  very  functions  were  never  exercised  except 
with  the  consent  and  under  the  control  of  all. 

Here,  as  in  nature,  it  is  correct  to  say  that  the  need  normally  created 
the  organ.  At  the  end  of  his  first  letter  Paul  mentions  the  household 
of  Stephanas,  who  were  the  first-fruits  of  his  mission  in  Achaia,  and 
whose  members  had  ordained  themselves  for  the  service  of  the  community. 
Did  he  feel  any  need  of  conferring  upon  them  any  other  ordination  than 
this  inward  ordination  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  2  He  simply  exhorts  the  other 
Christians  to  show  themselves  deferential  and  submissive  to  them.  So 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  he  notes  a  zealous  Christian,  Phabe, 
who  had  performed  the  same  functions  for  the  early  believers  at 
Cenchreae  as  the  family  of  Stephanas  at  Corinth,  and  he  places  her  in 
the  same  rank  of  voluntary  servant  and  patron  of  the  community.3  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  by  degrees,  as  the  little  Christian  church  lost  its 
family  character,  and  by  expansion  took  on  that  of  a  great  urban  or 
regional  association,  these  functions  became  more  stable  and  regular. 

*1  Cor.  xiv.  Paul  was  obliged  to  recall  to  modesty  and  silence  the  women  who 
were  also  endowed  with  inspiration,  1  Cor.  xi.  5-16,  xiv.  34.  He  left  to  the  church 
itself  the  charge  of  regulating  these  matters,  1  Cor.  xi.  13-16. 

*  1  Cc*  xvi.  15  ff.    Note  the  expression,  tratav  iavrotot. 

"Rom.  xvi.  1,  9, 


FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COMMUNITY  OF  CORINTH        73 

Provision  was  made  for  them  by  election  by  the  general  assembly  of 
brethren.1  Such  was  the  germ  whence  naturally  grew  the  orders  of 
deacons,  of  elders,  of  episcopoi  or  overseers,  which  appear  to  have  been 
constituted  at  Corinth,  as  everywhere  else,  a  few  years  later.  There  is 
no  more  mystery  or  miracle  or  sacramental  element  in  this  spontaneous 
organisation  than  in  those  at  that  time  found  in  every  large  city, 
whether  in  the  synagogues  of  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  or  in  the  pagan 
associations,  where  we  find  the  same  interior  ministrations  designated 
by  the  same  names.2 

Let  us  pass  over  forty  years.  The  letter  which  the  church  of  Rome 
addresses  to  its  sister  church  of  Corinth  by  the  pen  of  Clement,  one  of 
its  elders,  toward  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian,  shows  the  latter 
church  again  passing  through  an  important  crisis.  A  part  of  the  com- 
munity, the  younger  and  less  docile  part,  had  put  itself  in  rebellion 
against  the  "  elders  and  heads "  established  and  recognised  by  the 
Church,  and  had  even  effected  the  deposition  of  some  of  these  in  tumul- 
tuous assemblies.3  Neither  in  Rome  nor  in  Corinth  was  there  yet  a 
bishop  in  the  Catholic  sense  of  the  word.  In  his  letter  Clement  does 
not  dispute  the  right  of  the  Corinthian  Christians  to  depose  their  elders 
and  heads.  Simply,  the  right  should  be  exercised  only  for  grave  and 
legitimate  reasons,  which  were  wanting  in  these  circumstances,  so  that 
the  revolution  attempted  by  some  appeared  like  the  effect  of  jealousy, 
the  spirit  of  disorder  and  turbulence,  rather  than 'a  work  of  justice  and 
piety.  This  is  why  the  church  of  Rome  blames  the  agitators,  invites 
them  to  repentance,  and  to  submit  themselves  to  the  elders  who  have 
been  duly  invested  with  their  charge,  or,  if  they  cannot  do  this,  to  leave 
the  country  that  the  Corinthian  community  may  again  enter  into  order 
and  peace.4 

But  such  crises,  even  when  happily  quieted,  cannot  but  leave  conse- 

*2  Cor.  viii.  19,  Acts  vi.  5,  xiv.  23;  "  Teaching  of  the  Apostles,"  15. 

'Appendix  XXXII. 

•Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  1  and  44. 

•Appendix  XXXIII. 


74        FIRST  CHRISTIAN  COMMUNITY  OF  CORINTH 

quences  behind  them.  The  authority  which  they  do  not  destroy  is  neces- 
sarily strengthened  by  the  process.  This  was  the  case  with  the  eccle- 
siastical authority  in  Corinth.  The  agitations  and  discords  of  the  early 
days,  of  the  time  of  Paul  himself,  had  resulted  in  constituting  a  stronger 
and  more  legal  body  of  presbyters,  who  for  more  than  thirty  years  had 
assured  the  uniform  progress  and  prosperity  of  the  Church.1  The  crisis 
of  the  year  96  brought  this  Church  into  position  for  another  step  in  the 
direction  of  greater  concentration  of  the  directing  authority.  Just  as 
this  authority  had  passed  from  the  bod}7  of  believers  into  the  hands  of  a 
Senate,  or  council  of  Elders,  so  it  was  to  pass  from  their  hands  into 
those  of  the  most  influential  man  among  them,  their  natural  head,  who 
would  thus  become  the  sole  bishop,  the  centre  and  personification  of  the 
entire  community,  the  official  guardian  of  the  traditional  faith,  and  the 
depository  of  the  authority  of  all.  The  history  of  ecclesiastical  evolu- 
tion during  the  first  two  centuries  is  that  of  a  double  abdication;  the 
assembly  of  believers  first  remit  their  powers  to  their  elect  men,  the 
presbyteroi;  and  in  its  turn  the  body  of  presbyteroi  or  episcopoi — for  at 
first  both  were  one — becomes  epitomised  in  a  single  personage,  its  rep- 
resentative, who  becomes  the  episcopos  by  pre-eminence,  the  Catholic 
bishop,  until  such  time  as  this  episcopate  in  its  turn  shall  abdicate  into 
the  hands  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  who  will  thus  become  the  universal 
bishop,  the  personification  and  compendium  of  all  Christendom.  To  use 
the  political  language  of  Montesquieu,  it  is  the  passage  from  a  state  of 
pure  democracy,  first  to  the  state  of  republican  oligarchy,  and  thence 
to  the  monarchical  state. 

This  evolution  had  been  completed  at  Corinth  when  Hegesippus,  on 
his  way  to  Rome,  spent  some  time  there  between  the  years  135  and  150. 
He  found  there  a  true  bishop,  by  name  Primus,  under  whose  undisputed 
authority  the  Church  so  long  convulsed  was  living  in'  the  most  irre- 
proachable orthodoxy  and  profound  peace.  A  little  later  Dionysius  of 
Corinth,  whose  influence  extended  far,  affords  a  fine  type  of  the  Catholic 
1  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  1  and  passim. 


PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE    75 

bishop  of  the  second  century,  taking  a  place  beside  Polycarp  at  Smyrna 
and  Soter  at  Rome.1 


in 

Progressive  Development  of  the  Episcopate 

THAT  which  had  been  taking  place  in  Corinth  had  been  taking  place  in 
almost  all  Christian  communities  in  the  great  cities.  The  same  history, 
with  variations,  was  being  repeated  everywhere.  An  institution  like  that 
episcopacy  which  dominated  the  second  century  of  the  Church  is  not 
formed  by  a  single  act  nor  in  one  day.  There  was  here  neither  special 
decree  of  institution  nor  act  of  private  will.  In  the  general  movement 
by  which  the  organisation  of  the  early  churches  led  up  to  the  Catholic 
episcopate  and  the  hierarchy,  we  must  see  the  workings  of  a  social  law, 
and  the  action  of  historic  causes,  as  independent  of  the  divine  arbiter, 
that  is  to  say,  of  miracle,  as  of  human  premeditation. 

The  little  Christian  communities  which  were  rapidly  being  formed 
almost  everywhere  were  the  work  of  itinerant  preachers.  The  apostles 
were  nothing  else.  Their  name  simply  means  missionary.  It  is  an  error 
to  think  that  the  name  was  reserved  solely  to  the  Twelve,  or  that  they 
formed  a  closed  college  with  an  exclusive  delegation  to  govern  Chris- 
tendom and  regulate  its  faith.  The  number  of  apostles  of  Christ 
(aTTooroAoi  TOV  Xptorov)  was  in  fact  considerable.  It  was  the  title  which 
those  took,  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  whether  as  the  consequence 
of  some  word  of  Jesus  heard  while  he  was  in  the  flesh,  or  later  as 
the  result  of  a  vision  and  a  command  of  the  Spirit,  went  forth  spon- 
taneously to  publish  his  gospel  and  found  new  churches.  But  to  have 
received  this  vocation,  whether  sooner  or  later,  created  in  Paul's  eyes  no 
essential  distinction.  The  chief  personage,  the  true  head  of  the  church 
of  Jerusalem  ard  of  the  Jewish  churches,  was  James,  who  was  not  one  of 
the  Twelve ;  and  the  greatest  of  the  apostles  to  the  Gentiles  was  Paul  of 
'Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV.  22,  1;  33,  9. 


76   PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE 

Tarsus,  who  had  only  been  called  to  the  apostolate  by  Jesus  after  His 
resurrection.1 

The  notion  and  the  representation  of  a  directoral  college  composed 
of  the  Twelve  alone,  to  whom  Christ  had  transmitted  his  authority  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  others,  together  with  special  grace  for  its  exercise, 
are  late  and  legendary.  The  first  link  of  the  golden  chain  forged  by 
Catholicism  to  attach  its  hierarchy  to  the  apostles  is  a  myth. 

In  the  beginning  we  find  two  great  classes  of  labourers  occupied  with 
the  work  of  God ;  one  was  the  men  of  the  word,  apostles,  prophets,  teach- 
ers, the  other  was  the  "  elders,"  the  overseers  or  episcopoi,  and  the 
deacons. 

Between  them  is  just  this  difference,  that  the  former  are  in  the 
service  of  the  Church  at  large,  and  even  of  the  world  which  must  be  con- 
verted, and  in  the  last  analysis  were  responsible  only  to  the  Spirit  who  in- 
spired and  guided  them,  while  the  latter,  on  the  contrary,  are  the  min- 
isters, the  elected  servants,  of  a  particular  community,  and  are  held 
responsible  by  it  for  their  charge. 

Thence  it  follows  that  in  the  apostolic  age  freedom  of  teaching  was 
absolute;  it  belonged  to  all  members  of  the  Church  in  their  very  char- 
acter as  Christians,  for  all  had  received  the  Spirit.  A  conflict  between 
these  free  itinerant  preachers  and  the  settled  official  leaders  of  the 
churches  was  inevitable.  The  authority  of  the  latter  must  often  have 
suffered  from  the  inspirations  of  the  former.  Nevertheless,  this  liberty 
was  long  preserved.  No  doubt  it  was  the  persistent  cause  of  the  troubles 
in  Corinth,  which  the  letter  of  Clement  was  intended  to  repress.  Hermas, 
Justin  Martyr,  Tatian,  Origen,  are  witnesses,  down  to  the  third  century, 
of  this  ancient  freedom,  of  which  the  laity  was  finally  entirely  despoiled, 
for  the  benefit  of  an  official  clergy  invested  with  a  monopoly  of  things 
divine.  It  was  in  the  necessity  of  things  that  the  ecclesiastical  authority 
should  lay  its  hand  upon  the  office  and  prerogative  of  teaching.  A  verse 
in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  marks  the  movement  of  transition :  "  Let  the 
elders  that  rule  well  be  counted  worthy  of  double  honour,  especially  those 

Appendix  XXXIV. 


PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE   77 

that  labour  in  the  word  and  in  teaching."  l  Nothing  contributed  more 
practically  to  the  establishment  of  the  episcopate.  The  prerogatives  of 
the  office  increased  with  the  distinction  of  him  who  exercised  it.  In  the 
end  the  entire  activity  of  the  community  was  concentrated  in  him. 

Confided  to  the  care  of  a  single  official  person,  doctrine  was  more 
easily  guarded  against  innovations,  and  unity  of  teaching  was  more 
surely  maintained.  The  "  Teaching  of  the  Apostles  "  preserves  a  curious 
testimony  of  the  reaction  almost  universally  felt  at  the  close  of  the  first 
century,  against  itinerant  prophets  and  preachers,  and  individual  in- 
spiration.2 

We  must  go  back  for  a  moment  to  note  this  capital  fact;  not  only 
do  we  not  find  in  the  beginning  any  formal  institution  of  episcopacy,  or 
of  any  hierarchy  whatsoever,  but  the  names  episcopos  and  presbyteros  are 
equivalent,  and  designate  the  same  persons;  one  word  being  defined  by 
Greek  usage,  after  the  analogy  of  the  pagan  brotherhoods,  the  other 
by  Hebraic  usage,  after  the  analogy  of  the  synagogues.  Whence  it 
appears  that  we  have  to  do  indifferently  with  several  bishops,  or  over- 
seers, or  several  elders,  or  directors,  in  the  same  community.  Both  are 
"  pastors,"  shepherds  leading  the  flock  of  Christ,  who  remains  the 
"  chief  Shepherd  of  souls."  This  identity  of  office  appears  not  only  in 
the  epistles  of  Paul,  but  also  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  First  Epistle 
of  Peter,  the  letter  of  Clement,  the  Shepherd  of  Hennas,  the  Teaching 
of  the  Apostles,  and  elsewhere. 

The  testimony  of  the  early  Church  is  universal,  and  admits  of  not  a 
single  exception.3  Long  after,  in  a  period  when  all  relations  had  under- 
gone a  change,  St.  Jerome  preserved  the  following  testimony,  summing 
it  up  in  these  terms  :  "  The  presbyter  is  the  same  as  the  bishop,  and  be- 

lTim.  v.  17.  [The  author's  French  translation  shows  his  meaning  more  clearly. 
"  The  presbyter  or  episcopus  who  can  join  the  gift  of  teaching  to  the  duty  of  adminis- 
tration and  direction  has  double  merit,  and  is  worthy  of  double  honour."  The  Greek  is, 


01  KdXws  irpoeo-TWTei  irptorfMrepoi  5iT\5jj  Ti/tijt  ifut^ffSuffav,  pdXurra  ol  KOTtwrret  if  \6yip  nal 
Stfa.ffKa\lq,.  —  Trans.] 

'  Appendix  XXXV. 

1  Appendix  XXXVI. 


78  PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE 
fore  parties  had  been  raised  up  in  religion  by  the  provocations  of  Satan, 
the  churches  were  governed  by  the  Senate  of  the  presbyters.  But  as  each 
one  sought  to  appropriate  to  himself  those  whom  he  had  baptised,  in- 
stead of  leaving  them  to  Christ,  it  was  appointed  that  one  of  the  pres- 
byters, elected  by  his  colleagues,  should  be  set  over  all  the  others,  and 
have  chief  supervision  over  the  general  well-being  of  the  community. 
And  this  is  not  my  private  opinion,  it  is  that  of  Scripture.  If  you 
doubt  that  bishop  and  presbyter  are  the  same,  that  the  first  word  is  one 
of  function,  and  the  second  one  of  age,  read  the  epistle  of  the  Apostle 
to  the  Philippians.  Without  doubt  it  is  the  duty  of  the  presbyters  to 
bear  in  mind  that  by  the  discipline  of  the  Church  they  are  subordinated 
to  him  who  has  been  given  them  as  their  head,  but  it  is  fitting  that  the 
bishops,  on  their  side,  do  not  forget  that  if  they  are  set  over  the  pres- 
byters, it  is  the  result  of  tradition,  and  not  by  the  fact  of  a  particular 
institution  of  the  Lord."  This  judgment  of  the  most  learned  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Western  Church  found  a  place  in  the  decree  of  Pope 
Gratian,  and  reappears  in  many  ecclesiastical  authors  down  to  the 
seventh  century.1 

Once  the  Galilean  idyll  had  come  to  a  close  with  the  death  of  Jesus 
at  Jerusalem,  the  Christian  religion,  if  we  overlook  the  little  peasant 
communities  beyond  the  Jordan,  presents  itself  in  history  as  a  religion 
of  large  cities ;  it  gets  its  foothold  in  populous  towns,  in  the  provincial 
capitals  of  the  empire,  and  thence  radiates  into  all  the  surrounding 
country.  Its  first  centres  were  Antioch,  Tarsus,  Ephesus,  Smyrna, 
Philippi,  Corinth,  Alexandria,  Rome,  and  later,  Carthage,  Aries,  Vienne, 
Lyons.  In  these  great  centres  the  focus,  the  place  where  religious  serv- 
ices and  the  agapes  were  held,  was  at  first  a  private  house,  like  that  of 
Stephanas  or  Chloe  or  Titus  Justus  in  Corinth,  of  Aquila  and  Priscilla 
at  Ephesus,  of  Philemon  at  Colosse,  of  Jason  at  Thessalonica,  of  Lydia 
at  Philippi,  etc.2  These  little  family  churches  were  very  numerous  in 
the  same  city.  This  is  certain  so  far  as  Corinth,  Ephesus,  and  Rome  are 
1  Appendix  XXXVII.  "Appendix  XXXVIII. 


PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE   79 

concerned.  The  power  of  mystic  union  emanating  from  the  gospel  caused 
these  ecclesiolce  to  consider  themselves  not  merely  as  sisters,  but  as  mem- 
bers of  a  single  larger  community,  which  also  needed  a  larger  representa- 
tion and  more  general  direction.  To  the  central  council,  common  to  all, 
it  is  probable  that  each  of  the  little  groups  sent  a  delegate  to  sit  as 
presbyter;  but  it  may  be  understood  that  each  central  council  would  give 
itself  one  or  more  episcopal,  charged  to  watch  over  the  general  interests 
and  needs  of  the  entire  community,  and  that  these  episcopal,  or  this 
episcopos,  becoming  the  head  of  the  whole  body,  would  enjoy  a  real  pre- 
eminence, and  a  greater  authority  in  it.  Here  is  yet  another  cause  of  the 
formation  of  the  episcopate.  Before  long  the  sentiment  of  a  special 
dignity  was  attached  to  the  title  of  bishop.  Those  who  directed  rival 
communities  in  the  neighbourhood  would  claim  it  in  their  turn,  and  thus 
arose  the  choreplscopol,  or  village  bishops,  who,  necessarily  subordinate 
to  him  of  the  metropolis,  constituted  for  the  latter  what  was  called  the 
"  diocese."  All  this  system  necessarily  followed  the  Roman  adminis- 
trative divisions. 

As  for  the  Corinthian  community,  so  for  the  other  great  churches, 
we  might  fix,  with  a  fair  degree  of  certainty,  the  evolutionary  period, 
which  by  degrees  raised  one  of  these  presbyteroi  to  the  place  and  rank  of 
sole  and  sovereign  bishop.  At  Rome,  for  example,  the  process  was  not 
more  rapid  than  at  Corinth  itself.  At  the  close  of  the  first  century  there 
was  still  no  bishop  there,  in  the  new,  specific  sense  of  the  word.  It  ap- 
pears from  the  letter  of  Clement  that  the  church  of  Rome,  like  that  of 
Corinth,  had  several  directors  at  its  head,  and  was  governed  by  a  more  or 
less  numerous  presbyterate.  Thirty  years  later  the  "  Shepherd  "  of 
Hermas  shows  the  same  condition,  except  that  he  also  bears  witness,  not 
without  severe  blame,  to  disputes  which  here,  as  in  Corinth,  have  arisen 
over  the  episcopal  office,  to  divisions  and  competitions  breaking  out 
among  the  presbyteroi,  who  sought  the  first  place  in  the  assembly  of  be- 
lievers.1 The  first  who  figures  as  bishop  of  Rome  appears  to  have  been 
1  Hermas,  "  Shepherd,"  Vis.  II.  4,  3. 


80   PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE 
Pius,  or  more  correctly,  after  him  Anicetus,  the  contemporary  and  friend 
of  Poly  carp,  about  the  year  150.     Those  who  are  cited  before  these  men 
were  merely  "  elders,"  several  of  whom  no  doubt  sat  together  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  church.^ 

At  Philippi  the  constitution  of  the  monarchical  episcopate  was  not 
less  slow  to  form.  The  letter  which  Paul  wrote  to  this  church  in  the 
year  63  or  64  proves  that  at  that  time  it  was  governed  by  deacons  and 
episcopal  in  the  plural.  In  the  year  120  or  121  the  system  had  not  yet 
been  changed.  The  letter  of  Polycarp  bears  testimony  to  this  in  a  man- 
ner which  admits  of  no  doubt. 

By  reason  of  the  reputation  or  personal  authority  of  some  eminent 
leader,  who  was  at  first  only  a  presbyter,  several  churches  passed  from 
the  presbyterial  to  the  monarchic  episcopal  system  without  shock,  and 
almost  without  being  aware  of  a  change.  Thus  it  was  with  the  church 
of  Smyrna,  under  the  long  leadership  of  Polycarp,  who,  born  about  the 
year  70,  was  already  at  its  head  in  the  reign  of  Trajan,  and  governed 
it  until  the  year  154  or  155.  Thus,  no  doubt,  it  was  in  the  church  of 
Antioch  with  Ignatius,  in  that  of  Hierapolis  with  Papias,  and  that  of 
Sardis  with  Meliton.  The  presbyterial  council  had  everywhere  a  presi- 
dent, to  whom  was  given  the  pre-eminent  title  of  episcopos.  In  all  the 
churches,  therefore,  the  germ  existed  whence  the  Catholic  episcopate 
should  more  or  less  rapidly  grow,  according  as  circumstances  were  more 
or  less  favourable.  Nowhere  was  there  occasion  to  import  it  from  with- 
out or  make  it  out  of  whole  cloth. 

Nevertheless,  this  concentration  of  all  power  in  a  single  hand,  this 
exaltation  of  a  single  personage  above  all  the  others,  did  not  take  place 
without  awakening  protest.  Revolutions,  however  happily  conducted, 
bring  on  storms. 

The  local  resistance  encountered  by  the  one  under  consideration  left 
its  traces  in  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  which  date  from  the 
epoch  of  Trajan,  that  is,  from  the  last  years  of  the  first  century,  or  the 

1  Appendix  XXXIX. 


PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE   81 

early  years  of  the  second.  There  are,  first,  the  writings  which  issued 
from  the  "  Johannean  "  school  of  Ephesus.  In  the  third  letter  of  John 
we  find  an  unnamed  presbyter,  doubtless  John  the  Presbyter  of  Ephesus, 
denouncing  to  Gaius  the  unruly  conduct  of  a  certain  Diotrephes,  who 
desired  to  have  the  first  place,  and  exercise  the  sole  authority  in  the  com- 
munity, and  who,  to  the  end,  does  not  hesitate  go  to  extremes,  even  to 
driving  from  the  church  those  who,  by  their  fidelity  to  the  old  customs, 
are  an  obstacle  to  his  ambition.1 

About  the  same  time  the  saying  which  it  is  claimed  that  Christ  ad- 
dressed to  Peter,  "  Thou  art  Peter,  and  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
church,"  made  its  first  appearance  with  the  last  redaction  of  the  Gospel 
of  Matthew;  the  name  of  Peter  became  the  patron  and  warrant  of  the 
episcopal  constitution  of  the  Church.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  see  a  protest  against  this  tendency  in  the  premeditated 
subordination  in  which  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  places  Peter 
with  regard  to  the  "  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved."  Peter  is  neither  the 
sole  nor  the  surest  interpreter  of  the  Master's  thought.  He  had  need 
to  approach  it  by  way  of  the  disciple  who  reclined  in  the  Lord's  bosom, 
and  it  even  seems  that  while  Peter  went  to  martyrdom,  the  Lord  had 
willed  that  John  should  survive  and  give  the  last  directions  to  the 
churches. 

All  this  means  nothing  if  it  does  not  signify  that  official  authority  is 
less  valuable  than  love  as  a  tie  to  Christ,  and  for  communion  with  him. 
From  the  beginning  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  met  its  eternal  enemy  in 
mystic  piety,  inwardly  confident,  zealous  to  find  God  in  liberty,  and 
without  intermediary.2 

Not  less  significant,  and  with  the  same  meaning,  are  the  exhortations 
which  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter,  whatever  its  authority  and  date,  ad- 
dresses to  the  presbyteroi.  There  is  no  question  of  any  bishop ;  but  allu- 
sion is  made,  with  vigorous  reprobation,  to  those  who  bring  no  devotion 
to  their  functions,  or  who  exercise  them  with  an  eye  to  discreditable  bene- 
1  Appendix  XL.  'Appendix  XLI. 


82  THE  PRIESTHOOD 

fits,  or  with  the  ambition  to  rule,  imagining  themselves  the  masters  of 

other  classes  of  the  community.1 

Finally,  we  hear  the  same  complaint  from  Hernias,  vehemently  de- 
nouncing the  dissensions  and  wranglings  for  the  highest  rank,  which 
are  disturbing  the  council  of  presbyters  in  Rome,  and  exhorting  them  to 
repent  and  keep  the  peace  by  purity  of  sentiment,  humility,  and  charity.'2 

But,  on  the  whole,  these  voices,  however  numerous,  were  isolated,  and 
could  effect  nothing  to  stem  the  current  which  was  carrying  the  Christian 
body  along.  They  were  trying  to  maintain  a  passing  order  which  no 
human  power  could  keep  from  passing.  In  proportion  as  Christianity 
grew  inwardly  cold,  it  felt  the  necessity  of  strengthening  its  external 
unity  by  a  more  closely  knit  organisation.  The  discipline,  authority,  and 
unified  government  of  the  bishop  must  henceforth  make  good  the  ever 
growing  deficit  in  faith,  hope,  and  love.  Future  heresies  were  destined  to 
hasten  the  movement  and  render  it  irresistible. 

IV 

The  Priesthood 

EPISCOPACY  is  something  more  than  a  monarchical  government.  It  is 
a  sacerdotal  government;  the  priestly  idea  completes  the  idea  of  the 
episcopate. 

In  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  Christianity,  like  the  older  re- 
ligions, presents  a  priestly  caste  with  identical  functions  and  titles.  The 
epithets  sacerdos,  pontifex,  passed  from  the  heads  of  Jewish  or  pagan 
priests  to  those  of  the  Christian  priesthood.  Sacrifice  became  the 
essence  of  the  new  cult,  as  it  had  been  of  those  of  former  times.  There 
was  only  one  difference,  the  ancient  sacrifices  were  figurative  and  vain, 
while  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  was  the  sole  true  and  efficacious  sacrifice. 
But  the  sacerdotal  notion  is  the  same. 

1 1  Pet.  v.  1-5,  especially  the  words    Karaicvpitforret  rdv  K\fipuv.      The    K'/.IK»I   are 
the  divers  orders  of  members  comprising  the  community. 
*  Hennas,  "  Shep.,"  Vis.  iii.  9,  7-10,  and  "  Simil.,"  viii.  7,  4. 


THE  PRIESTHOOD  83 

Henceforth  the  priest  is  endowed  with  a  sacred  character,  a  divine 
privilege  raises  him  above  the  rest  of  men.  In  his  dread  hand  he  holds 
the  mercies  and  the  wrath  of  God,  he  gives  or  refuses  the  expiation  that 
seems  necessary,  and  holds  in  his  hand  the  keys  of  heaven  and  hell.  As 
in  the  old  religions,  so  in  the  religious  system  of  Catholicism,  to  enter 
into  relations  with  God  the  people  must  accept  the  mediation  of  the 
priest,  and  thus,  for  all  that  concerns  the  religious  life,  they  remain  in 
absolute  dependence  upon  him.  The  Catholic  Church  made  admirable 
use  of  the  rites  of  worship  and  sacerdotal  forms  of  the  past,  in  organis- 
ing her  worship  and  constituting  her  hierarchy.  Nowhere  is  the  survival 
of  ancient  elements  in  new  institutions  more  apparent.  It  is  very  cer- 
tain that  the  idea  of  a  new  priesthood,  a  superior  caste,  among  Chris- 
tian people,  is  absolutely  foreign  to  the  thought  of  Jesus  and  to  the 
gospel  preached  by  the  apostles.  Its  later  triumph  must  be  explained 
like  many  analogous  historic  phenomena,  by  the  natural,  and  no  doubt 
inevitable,  reprisals  of  vanquished  religions  from  those  who  overcame 
them  only  by,  in  many  respects,  perpetuating  them. 

If  the  new  principle  of  the  gospel  was  to  be  realised  in  a  popular 
religious  society,  or  even  if  it  was  to  make  itself  understood  and  enter 
the  consciousness  of  the  old  world,  it  could  not  remain  purely  spiritual ; 
it  was  doomed,  if  I  dare  say  so,  to  flow  in  the  religious  moulds  of  the 
past.  This  historic  realisation  of  the  Christian  principle  within  the 
framework  of  pre-existing  habits  and  notions,  or,  properly  speaking, 
the  delimitation  of  Catholicism,  was  the  work  of  the  first  three  centuries.1 
This  evolution  is  summed  up  in  the  history  of  two  words :  priest  and 
clergy.  Our  word  priest  comes  from  the  Greek  word  presbyter,  to  which 
originally  all  sacerdotal  idea  was  foreign.  It  was  precisely  translated 
in  Latin  by  senior,  elder,  delegated  to  the  Senate  to  administer  the  affairs 
of  the  community.  He  was  designated  by  election  for  services  rendered, 
or  to  be  rendered,  precisely  as  were  the  sediles  by  the  electors  of  the 

1  See  the  author's  "  Esquisse  d'une  Philosophic  de  la  Religion,"  p.  233  ff.    [English 
translation*  "  Outlines  of  a  Philosophy  of  Religion."] 


84  THE  PRIESTHOOD 

municipality,  or  as  were  the  rulers  of  the  synagogues  by  their  fellow- 
worshippers.  Not  more  in  one  case  than  another,  did  anyone  suppose 
that  this  choice  withdrew  the  elect  from  their  natural  position.  The 
word  presbyter  has  no  other  meaning  until  the  middle  of  the  second 
cenvtury.  But  it  was  inevitable  that  when  the  Eucharist  was  invested 
with  the  appearance  and  significance  of  a  sacrifice,  the  presbyter  should 
take  on  the  form  and  functions  of  a  sacerdos.  This  sacerdotal  idea  is  so 
deeply  embedded  in  the  word  priest,  as  entirely  to  overlay  and  put  out  of 
sight  its  original  significance.  Priesthood  and  sacerdos  have  become 
synonymous.  Thus  the  history  of  words  sometimes  tells  us  that  of  ideas.1 

The  word  clergy  has  had  a  precisely  parallel  destiny.  In  Greek 
kleros  has  the  most  general  meaning,  from  that  of  a  die  for  gaming  and 
fortune-telling,  to  that  of  function,  ministry,  and  rank  or  social  class.2 
In  one  of  his  letters  Ignatius  still  applies  it  to  the  whole  assembly  of 
Christians.3  But  in  reality  there  were  several  classes  or  confraternities 
in  each  community.  There  was  the  kleros  of  ordinary  members,  that  of 
widows  and  of  matrons,  that  of  confessors  of  the  faith,  that  of  deacons, 
elders,  and  bishops.4 

The  invasion  and  preponderance  of  the  sacerdotal  idea  disturbed  the 
equilibrium  of  these  various  classes,  and  entirely  changed  the  relations 
between  those  who  were  clothed  with  it  and  the  community.  They  over- 
shadowed or  subordinated  to  themselves  all  the  others,  as  steps  of  the 
hierarchic  scale,  of  which  they  held  the  top.  The  order  of  seniores  and 
episcopoi  became  the  pre-eminent  ecclesiastical  order,  the  sovereign 
sacerdotal  caste,  the  clergy.5 

A  priesthood  involves  the  idea  of  sacrifice.  Once  introduced  into  the 
system,  the  idea  of  sacrifice  was  therefore  the  pivot  of  the  revolution 
which  we  have  just  described.  The  same  movement  which  conducted 
Christian  worship  to  the  Catholic  Mass  also  led  the  primitive  presbytery 
to  the  sacerdotal  episcopacy. 

1  Appendix  XLII.  s  Appendix  XLIII.  '"Ad  Ephes.,"  xi. 

4  Appendix  XLI V.  •  Appendix  XLV. 


THE  PRIESTHOOD  86 

The  worship  required  by  Christ,  and  defined  in  his  gospel,  was  worship 
in  spirit  and  in  truth, — that  is  to  say,  prayer  from  the  heart,  trust  in 
the  Father's  love,  the  moral  consecration  of  soul  and  life.  He  thus  did 
away  with  victims  and  priests,  temples  and  altars.  More  than  once 
Jesus  showed  his  disdain  of  Levitical  rites  and  sacrifices.  He  cleansed  the 
temple  of  the  merchants  who  encumbered  it,  and  ended  by  prophesying 
its  approaching  destruction.1  With  the  Messianic  era,  in  any  case, 
sacrifices  were  to  cease.2  How  then  could  the  Christian  worship  have  be- 
come in  the  course  of  two  centuries  essentially  a  sacrifice,  and  its  offici- 
ating minister  a  priest? 

It  began,  in  the  first  place,  through  metaphor.  To  explain  and 
justify  so  radical  a  change  the  preachers  of  the  new  religion  were  forced 
to  make  use  of  the  old  forms  of  religious  speech.  They  said  that  the 
sacrifice  truly  pleasing  to  God  was  the  giving  up  of  sin ;  that  the  offering 
which  he  claimed  was  the  gift  of  the  heart,  grateful  prayer,  love  of  one's 
neighbor,  purity  of  life.  Thus  Paul,  the  most  spiritualistic  of  the 
apostles,  wrote  to  the  Roman  Christians,  "  Present  your  bodies  a  living 
sacrifice,  holy  and  acceptable  to  God.  This  is  your  reasonable  service," 
that  is,  it  is  the  only  worship  which  comes  within  the  logic  of  your 
faith.3  The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  goes  a  step  farther, 
with  his  resources  of  allegorical  exegesis  and  his  Alexandrian  typology ; 
he  discovers  in  the  new  covenant  the  permanent  reality  of  worship,  of 
which  the  old  had  been  only  the  temporary  shadow,  high  priest  and 
victim,  temple,  altar  and  expiatory  blood.4  This  method  was  not  without 
danger.  The  foundation  of  the  new  worship  was  doubtless  new,  but  the 
old  forms  were  maintained.  The  conception  of  worship  remained  funda- 
mentally the  same.  When  the  spirit  of  the  Master  should  breathe  less 
warmly,  when  the  body  of  Christians  should  grow  cold,  as  in  the  second 

'John  iv.  23,  24;  Matt.  vi.  1-18,  ix.  13;  Mark  vii.  10-12,  xii.  33;  John  ii.  13-19; 
Matt.  xxiv.  2,  xxvi.  61;  Acts  vi.  14,  vii.  42-50;  Rom.  xii.  1,   \OJIK)I  \arpela. 
1  Rev.  xxi.   22:  xal  va&v  ofa  tlSov  ivafa-Q. 

•Rom.  xii.  1;  Eph.  v.  2;  Phil.  ii.  17,  iv.  18;  Heb.  iii.,  x.;  Rev.  v.  9.  vi.  9,  viii.  3,  etc. 
4  Heb.  v.-x.   Cf.  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  40,  41,  and  passim. 


86  THE  PRIESTHOOD 

century  they  did,  then  they  would  surely  be  drawn  by  the  force  of  pagan 
habits  into  the  old  ways  of  the  past.  On  one  side  ecclesiastical  interest, 
conspiring  with  the  formal  and  superstitious  piety  of  Christians  by  birth 
and  name  only,  would  tend  to  change  the  apostolic  metaphors  into 
positive  realities,  and  the  Church  would  labor  to  make  real  in  its  constitu- 
tion and  liturgy  that  Levitical  type  of  worship  which  the  Old  Testament 
presented  to  it  as  instituted  by  God  himself. 

All  this  already  appears  in  the  history  of  the  Eucharistic  Supper, 
which,  by  a  process  easy  to  follow,  became  the  Roman  Catholic  sacrifice 
of  the  Mass. 

In  the  earliest  time  it  had  been  a  religious  feast,  a  fraternal  banquet, 
analogous  to  the  family  meal  celebrated  by  the  Jews  on  certain  days, 
with  prayers  of  blessing  over  the  bread  broken  and  distributed,  and  the 
common  cup,  circulated  from  hand  to  hand.1  To  partake  of  the  same 
food  was  to  make  one  body  of  those  who  were  fed  by  it.  Jesus,  like  the 
pious  Jews  of  his  time,  had  the  habit  of  observing  feasts  of  this  kind  with 
his  disciples,  and  of  beginning  with  a  prayer  of  thanksgiving  said  over 
the  bread  and  the  wine.  It  was  from  this  prayer  that  the  rite  was  named 
Eucharist.2  It  was  entirely  natural  that  the  last  supper  of  which  he 
partook  with  his  disciples  should  take  on  greater  solemnity,  and  that 
the  Saviour,  just  as  under  the  influence  of  the  vision  of  approaching 
death  he  had  applied  Mary's  perfume  to  the  embalming  of  his  body, 
should  in  this  case  have  shown  in  the  broken  bread  and  poured  wine,  the 
image  of  his  broken  body  and  shed  blood.3  But  it  does  not  appear  that 
in  the  primitive  church  of  Jerusalem,  or  later  in  the  other  communities, 
the  idea  of  the  death  of  Christ  was  always  attached  to  the  celebration 
of  this  family  meal.  No  liturgy  was  adopted  for  it.  Prophets  and 
apostles  improvised  the  prayers  and  exhortations  which  accompanied  the 

1  Treatise  Berachoth  in    Babylonian  Talmud,  Schwab's  edit.,  p.  410  ff.,  and  the 
Jewish  Ritual.     Vide  Lightfoot,  "  Horae  Hebraicae." 

*Mark  vi.  41  and  paral.  viii.  7,  xiv.  23;  1  Cor.  x.  16,  ef\oyf><ras, 
rijt  ti>\oylas. 

•Appendix  XL VI. 


THE  PRIESTHOOD  87 

distribution  of  the  bread  and  wine,  the  symbol  of  the  spiritual  food  with 
which  God  nourished  the  souls  of  his  elect.1 

In  Paul's  churches,  on  the  contrary,  the  Lord's  Supper  was  from 
the  beginning  the  epitome  or  the  symbol  of  the  gospel  of  the  cross,  that 
is,  of  the  death  of  Christ,  who  offered  himself  as  an  expiatory  victim  for 
the  salvation  of  men.  The  "  Lord's  Supper  "  was  meant  to  keep  alive 
liie  memory  of  the  sacrifice.  The  Eucharist  was  distinguished  from  the 
primitive  agape,  it  preserved  this  special  significance,  and  finally  became 
the  central  feature  of  the  worship.  The  elements  of  the  bread  and  wine 
were  thus  brought  into  close  relations  with  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ. 
He  who  should  unworthily  eat  of  this  bread  and  drink  of  this  cup  would 
be  responsible  for  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord.  Without  any  doubt 
the  Eucharist  is  here  still  a  mere  memorial  and  symbol,  but  it  is  a  symbol 
already  full  of  mystery.2 

These  two  conceptions  of  the  Communion  gradually  drew  together, 
mingled,  and  were  both  developed  to  the  idea  of  a  veritable  sacrifice.  The 
first  promptly  reached  the  idea  of  a  sacrifice  of  oblation,  an  offering  made 
to  God  by  the  first-fruits  of  those  vital  aliments  on  which  the  body  of  the 
community  subsists ;  the  second  finally  reached  the  idea  of  an  expiatory 
sacrifice  for  sin. 

In  both  cases  the  first  idea  of  the  Eucharist  is  reversed.  It  is  no 
longer  God  who  gives,  it  is  the  community  which  offers,  that  it  may  after- 
ward obtain.  Already  in  the  epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome  the  elements  of 
the  Supper  are  represented  as  an  oblation  resembling  the  oblations  of  the 
Old  Testament,  brought  and  laid  upon  God's  altar.3  It  is  the  free  offer- 
ing which  Jehovah  has  already  demanded  by  the  mouth  of  the  prophet 
Malachi,  an  offering  of  joy  and  gratitude  for  the  fruits  of  the  earth, 
for  the  spiritual  bread  and  all  the  benefits  of  God,  including  those  which 
are  included  for  sinners  in  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ.4 

1  Appendix  XL VII.  *  1  Cor.  x.  18-21,  xi.  17-29. 

•Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  36,  1;  40,  1,  2;  41,  2;    Ignatius,  "Ad  Eph.";  Justin 
Martyr,  "  Dial,  ad  Tryph.,"  117. 
•Appendix  XLVIII. 


88  THE  PRIESTHOOD 

But  the  more  the  bread  and  wine  came  to  be  understood  as  the  very 
body  of  the  incarnate  Word,  the  more  also  was  the  idea  of  a  simple  obla- 
tion of  gratitude  bound  to  fade  and  yield  place  to  the  idea  of  an  ex- 
piatory sacrifice,  and  the  act  of  the  priest  in  the  Eucharist  appear  like 
the  repetition  of  the  sacrifice  accomplished  by  Christ  upon  the  cross. 
The  nature  and  effects  of  the  sacrifice  were  identical  in  both  cases.  That 
is  to  say  that  the  act  performed  at  the  altar  had  the  same  virtue  as  the 
death  of  Jesus.  In  other  words,  every  day,  in  the  Host  consecrated  and 
offered  according  to  the  official  rite,  Christ  himself  is  sacrificed  again. 
The  sign  has  become  the  thing  signified,  and  the  commemoration  of  the 
sacrifice  on  Calvary  is  its  perpetual  repetition.  Thenceforth,  also,  the 
virtue  of  the  sacrifice  was  conceived  more  and  more  as  magical  in  its 
effects,  and  extended  in  its  efficacy.  It  was  not  limited  to  those  who 
partook  of  it,  but  to  all  those  present  or  absent,  living  or  dead,  whom  the 
priest  included  in  his  prayer.1 

With  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  the  Catholic  priesthood  was  constituted 
upon  the  model  of  former  priesthoods.  It  had  the  same  monopoly  of 
dread  and  mysterious  power,  whether  of  rendering  the  Deity  propitious, 
or  of  unchaining  his  wrath.  The  consecrating  words  had  the  same 
magical  effect  as  the  formulas  of  ancient  rituals,  and  the  same  power 
(in  case  of  need)  to  do  violence  to  the  divine  will.  The  priest  was  more 
than  a  man,  more  than  an  angel.2  The  necessary  mediator  between  earth 
and  heaven,  he  controls  the  authority  of  God  himself.  He  closes,  and  no 
man  opens ;  he  opens,  and  no  man  closes.  He  saves  and  damns  without 
appeal.  This  is  what  is  called  the  power  of  the  Keys. 

The  separation  between  people  and  priest  was  accomplished.  The 
beautiful  gospel  figure  of  the  shepherd  and  the  flock,  literally  received 
and  interpreted,  had  been  used  to  support  this  sacerdotal  monopoly.  It 
will  be  remembered  how  Lainez,  the  general  of  the  Jesuits,  commented 
upon  it  in  a  celebrated  discourse  before  the  Council  of  Trent :  "  Sheep  are 

1  In  the  time  of  Cyprian  the  evolution  was  an  accomplished  fact,  and  all  its  conse- 
quences were  unfolding  themselves.    Cyprian,  Epist.  63. 
'Cat  Rom.,  P.  II.  7,  2. 


THE  PRIESTHOOD  89 

animals  destitute  of  reason,  and  in  consequence  they  can  have  no  part  in 
the  government  of  the  Church."  There  are,  therefore,  two  Churches, 
one  which  includes  the  mass  of  Christian  people,  the  other,  the  Church  in 
the  strict  sense,  is  the  hierarchy.  To  the  latter  pertains  the  office  of 
governing  and  teaching;  to  the  former  that  of  obeying  and  receiving 
instruction.2  Catholic  architecture  has  expressed  this  division  of  the 
body  of  Christ  by  separating  the  choir  from  the  rest  of  the  church  by 
a  railing  and  steps.  The  choir  is  the  priest's  church,  the  rest  is  the 
church  of  the  worshippers.  Thus  in  ancient  temples  a  veil  or  wall  kept 
the  profane  multitude  from  the  sanctuary  of  the  god,  which  the  priest 
alone  had  the  right  to  enter,  and  there  officiate. 

A  beautiful  legend,  inspired  by  the  primitive  Christian  spirit,  teaches 
that  at  the  very  hour  when  Jesus  expired  upon  the  cross  the  veil  of  the 
temple  in  Jerusalem  was  rent  by  an  invisible  hand,  and  the  Most  Holy 
Place,  until  then  reserved  for  the  High  Priest  alone,  appeared  open,  and 
thenceforth  accessible  to  all,3  a  figure  of  the  holy  equality  acquired  by 
Jesus  for  all  his  disciples.  Nothing  was  farther  from  the  mind  of  Jesus 
than  to  constitute  a  new  sacerdotal  order.  Upon  no  point  has  his 
thought  been  more  flagrantly  traversed  than  on  this,  by  those  who  call 
themselves  his  heirs.  He  will  have  no  master  among  his  own,  who  are  all 
brethren.  He  promises  to  all,  equally,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  And 
in  the  primitive  church  it  was  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  alone  which  made  a 
true  Christian.  Peter  recognised  the  advent  of  the  Messianic  era  by  the 
fact  that  the  Spirit,  until  then  reserved  for  certain  persons,  priests  and 
prophets,  was  then  poured  out  upon  all  flesh  universally.4  It  was  for 
this  reason  that  every  believer  might  speak  the  word  of  God  in  the 
assemblies.5  The  apostle  Peter  writes  to  the  Christians  of  Asia,  without 

1  Sarpi,  "  Hist.  Cone.  Trident,"  VII.  p.  1063. 
»  "  Cat.  Rom.,"  L.  10,  23. 
•Matt,  xxvii.  51. 

4  Matt  xxiii.  6-10,  iii.  11 ;  Mark  xiii.  11 ;  Luke  xi.  13;  Acts  ii.  33,  vi.  3,  viii.  15,  xv.  8; 
Rom.  viu.  9,  23;  1  Cor.  U.  10-16;  2  Cor.  xiii.  13,  etc. 
5 1  Cor.  xiv. 


90  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 

exception :  "  Ye  are  an  elect  race,  a  royal  priesthood."  This  is  the  hymn 
that  rings  through  all  the  Apocalypse  of  John :  "  Christ  has  made  us 
kings  and  priests  unto  God  his  Father."1  The  idea  of  the  universal 
priesthood  of  Christians  was  long  held  in  the  Church,  concurrently  with 
that  of  the  priests,  which  in  the  end  abolished  it.  Yet  Justin  Martyr, 
Irenseus,  Tertullian  still  bear  witness  to  the  original  authority  of  this 
idea  and  to  its  persistence.2 

"  Universal  priesthood  "  is  a  metaphorical  expression  borrowed  from 
the  past  to  express  something  essentially  new,  so  true  it  is  that  new  ideas, 
to  be  comprehended,  must  appear  in  an  old  dress.  But  this  Christian 
metaphor  none  the  less  distinctly  opposes  the  monopoly  and  privilege  of 
an  organised  priestly  caste.  Peter  founded  the  universal  priesthood  of 
Christians  upon  this,  that  they  offer  "  spiritual  sacrifices,  which  alone  are 
well  pleasing  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ."  Evidently  he  recognised  no  others, 
he  esteemed  that  the  Eucharist  also  was,  or  ought  to  be,  a  spiritual 
sacrifice,  which  each  Christian  has  the  right  to  offer  to  God  by  Jesus 
Christ.  If  this  is  the  case,  all  the  reasons  at  once  vanish  which  might 
be  given  by  the  priest  for  raising  himself  above  the  community  of  whom 
he  is  simply  the  servant. 


Apostolic  Succession 

CALLED  into  being  by  solicitude  for  unity  and  authority  in  the  Church, 
constituted  by  the  notion  of  the  priesthood,  the  episcopate  was  com- 
pleted by  the  theory  of  Apostolic  Succession.  But  the  theory  followed, 
not  preceded,  the  establishment  of  the  episcopate.  It  is  always  thus  with 
political  institutions.  They  must  have  existed  in  fact  before  anyone  could 
dream  of  justifying  them  in  law.  The  Capets  already  held  the  crown 
of  France  when  their  lawyers  and  theologians  devised  the  theory  of  divine 

>1  Pet.  ii.  4,  5;  Rev.  v.  10. 

4 Justin  Martyr,  "Dial.  adv.  Tryph.,"  116;  Irenaeus,  IV.  8,  3;  Tertullian,  "De 
Exhort.  Cast." 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  91 

right  in  order  to  settle  it  upon  their  heads  and  those  of  their  descendants. 
Apostolic  succession  is  the  theory  of  the  divine  and  supernatural  legit- 
imacy of  the  power  of  the  bishops. 

This  theory,  which  appears  at  the  close  of  the  second  century,  was  the 
work  of  the  juristic  genius  of  Rome.  How  could  the  episcopal  authority, 
already  universally  established,  be  raised  above  attacks  from  without 
and  discussions  from  within  ?  Neither  the  idea  of  a  mere  historic  tradi- 
tion, ever  subject  to  criticism  and  reason,  nor  that  of  a  governmental 
authority  emanating  from  the  community  itself,  and  deriving  all  its 
rights  from  the  consent  of  the  Christian  people,  could  suffice  to  maintain 
order,  prevent  schisms,  and  banish  heresy.  The  power  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  of  those  who  exercised  it,  must  be  put  above  and  outside  of  the 
judgment  of  the  Church  itself,  and  for  that  there  was  only  one  solution: 
to  show  that  it  was  a  question  of  supernatural  power,  not  derived  from 
the  will  of  the  Church,  but  received  from  heaven  by  official  transmission, 
legal,  uninterrupted,  from  God  to  Christ,  from  Christ  to  the  apostles, 
from  the  apostles  to  the  bishops  and  their  successors. 

A  prince  who  is  destined  to  reign  enters  the  dynasty  by  birth.  En- 
trance into  the  episcopal  dynasty  is  by  ordination. 

This  legal  transmission  of  a  power  of  divine  origin  is  in  both  cases  a 
monstrous  historic  fiction,  but  in  both  cases  also,  it  is  not  the  fiction  that 
establishes  the  power,  it  is  the  power  already  established  that  gives  rise 
to  and  accounts  for  the  fiction.  The  dogma  of  apostolical  succession  did 
not  make  the  bishops,  the  bishops  made  the  dogma.  Thus  all  returns  into 
the  natural  order  of  things,  and  the  mystery  is  explained. 

Authentic  history  mentions  no  example  of  a  bishop  consecrated  by  an 
apostle,  and  to  whom  an  apostle  might  have  transmitted  by  this  institu- 
tion either  the  totality,  or  a  part  of  his  powers.  For  this  there  are  two 
equally  decisive  reasons :  the  first  is  that  an  interval  of  more  than  half  a 
century  separates  the  disappearance  of  the  apostles  from  the  appearance 
of  the  first  bishop,  in  the  Catholic  sense.  The  second  is  that  in  the  prin- 
ciple itself  bishops  or  deacons  could  not  have  been  the  continuators  of 


92  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 

the  apostle's  office,  since  the  two  orders  are  essentially  different.  The 
apostle  held  his  mission  from  God}  and  was  devoted  to  the  work  of  gen- 
eral evangelisation ;  he  could  not  become  the  settled  director  of  a  partic- 
ular parish;  no  apostle  was  ever  a  deacon  or  a  bishop.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  bishops,  elders,  and  deacons  belonged  to  a  local  church,  whose 
responsible  functionaries  they  were,  and  upon  this  church  they  could  not 
be  imposed  without  its  consent.  This  being  the  case,  the  precise  mode 
of  their  nomination  was  of  small  importance.  No  doubt  the  apostle  or 
founder  of  a  church  never  lost  his  interest  in  it.  In  some  cases  he  per- 
haps took  the  initiative  and  designated  those  who  were  most  worthy  of 
choice,  and  these  were  confirmed  by  the  assembly;  in  others  it  was  the 
assembly  which  first  elected  its  elders  or  deacons,  whom  an  apostle  after- 
ward installed;  or  in  still  others  it  was  the  most  capable  and  zealous 
Christians,  like  the  household  of  Stephanas  at  Corinth,  who  gave  them- 
selves to  the  work,  of  their  own  initiative  took  charge  of  the  worship  and 
common  business  of  the  church,  and  were  confirmed  in  this  function  by 
the  grateful  approbation  of  the  community.  But  in  the  last  analysis 
the  fountain  of  power  and  the  final  authority  remained  in  the  full 
assembly  of  believers.1 

If  it  had  been  otherwise,  if  the  bishops  had  been  chosen  by  the 
apostles,  and  that  according  to  an  official  and  invariable  rite,  it  would 
be  incomprehensible  that  this  office  of  the  episcopate  should  have  been 
the  cause  of  so  many  cabals  and  dissensions  in  the  churches,  especially 
in  the  early  days.2  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  is  more  natural  if 
democracy  was  at  first  the  rule  of  primitive  Christianity,  as  everything 
demonstrates  that  it  was. 

The  apostles  dead,  and  the  original  difference  between  the  functions 
of  apostle  and  bishop  once  forgotten,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  men 

1  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  54,  2.  Of.  44,  3,  <ruwv5oK?j<r(i<rr;f  ri)s  iKK\i)fflas  wderit.  The 
right  of  veto,  and  sometimes  of  election,  still  belonged  to  the  full  assembly  of 
believers  in  the  time  of  Cyprian  (Epist.  33,  55,  67,  60),  and  persisted  even  till  the 
Middle  Ages. 

1  Appendix  XLIX. 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  93 

of  order  would  have  appealed  to  some  sort  of  general  tradition  in  which 
the  episcopate  was  represented  as  the  succession  and  continuation  of  the 
apostolate,  and  that  they  would  seek  to  strengthen  the  former  by  all  the 
distinction  which  the  latter  preserved  in  the  eyes  of  the  new  generations. 
Even  more  readily  will  it  be  perceived  that  the  attempt  would  have  been 
made,  by  the  end  of  the  first  century,  to  regularise  the  choice  and  investi- 
ture of  the  "  elders,"  deacons,  and  "  episcopoi,"  that  they  might  become 
the  guardians  and  depositaries  of  the  true  doctrine  and  apostolic 
tradition.1 

But  two  things  sufficiently  prove  that  in  the  time  of  Clement  of 
Rome  and  the  Pastoral  Epistles  the  theory  of  apostolic  succession  was 
not  yet  in  existence.  In  the  first  place  we  have  everywhere  to  do,  not  with 
a  single  bishop,  but  with  several  at  a  time,  who  together  govern  the  same 
community.  Therefore  the  Catholic  bishop  is  not  yet  there.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  very  remarkable  that  Clement  of  Rome,  not  content 
to  justify  the  functions  of  these  episcopoi  and  deacons  by  appealing  to 
a  too  vague  apostolic  institution,  especially  invokes  the  authority  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  proving  by  somewhat  fantastic  reasoning  that 
Isaiah,  for  instance,  predicted  and  preordained  the  installation  of 
bishops  and  deacons  in  the  various  Christian  parishes.2 

These  phenomena,  taken  from  life  and  studied  at  first  hand,  show 
how  imaginary  were  the  representations  of  the  origins  of  the  episcopate, 
made  a  century  later.  Here  again  the  dogma  has  hidden  history  from 
all  eyes. 

The  second  stage  of  this  evolution  is  represented  by  the  theory  of 
Ignatius  concerning  the  episcopate.  This  theory  differed  essentially 
from  that  which  was  later  to  triumph ;  it  was  higher  and  more  religious, 
but  by  that  very  fact  less  apt  to  serve  in  a  juridical  argument  in  the 
discussions  of  the  time. 


1  Tit.  i.  5-10;  2  Tim.  ii.  1,  2;  1  Tim.  v.  22,  iv.  14,  etc. 

'Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  42,  5;  Ibid.,  43;  miraculous  designation  of  the  tribe  of 
Levi  and  the  family  of  Aaron,  according  to  Numbers  xvii. 


94  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 

The  bishop  of  Ignatius  is  still  a  simple  local  bishop,  if  I  may  so 
speak ;  a  bishop  whose  mission  it  is  to  realise  and  represent  the  unity  of 
the  parish  over  which  he  presides.  This  person  is  the  hearthstone 
around  which  is  concentrated  the  inner  life  of  the  community. 

In  the  Relevation  of  St.  John  an  angel  appears  at  the  head  of  each 
of  the  seven  churches  of  Asia,  to  whom  the  seer  writes  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord.  This  guardian  angel  is  the  very  genius  of  each  church. 
Well,  the  bishop  of  Ignatius  is  this  angel  in  flesh  and  blood,  thenceforth 
incarnated  in  the  person  of  the  head,  who,  before  the  world  and  before 
God,  represents  the  entire  community.1 

Ignatius  mentally  contemplates  a  divine  and  ideal  type  of  church, 
a  heavenly  type  which  was  once  realised  upon  earth  during  the  historic 
life  of  the  Christ.  At  that  moment  of  perfection  there  was  a  living 
centre  in  the  Messianic  community,  the  person  of  Christ;  around  him 
the  college  of  apostles,  and  finally,  in  the  third  rank,  the  circle  of  be- 
lievers. This  was  the  primitive  type  which  each  distinct  Christian  group 
ought  to  try  to  reproduce.  In  the  centre,  the  bishop  who  holds  the  place 
of  Christ,  or  of  God ;  then  the  presbytery,  which  represents  the  apostle, 
then  the  assembly  of  Christian  believers.  Not  the  bishop,  but  the  pres- 
bytery, is  here  the  successor  and  heir  of  the  apostolate.2 

However  high  Ignatius  may  place  the  mystic  personality  of  the 
bishop,  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  community  itself  still  re- 
mained, as  in  the  earlier  time,  the  basis  and  starting  point  of  his  eccle- 
siastical conception.  So  long  as  this  is  the  case  the  bishop  emerges  from 
the  community  and  is  not  yet  essentially  different  from  the  "  elders," 
above  whom  he  stands  while  still  belonging  to  them,  as  the  elders  still 
draw  their  life  from  the  church  which  chose  them  and  which  they  direct. 
The  bishop  is  the  representative  of  Christ  and  for  the  time  stands  in  his 
place,  but  he  is  not  the  Christ ;  the  elders  are  the  representatives  of  the 
apostles,  they  are  not  the  apostles.  It  is  the  allegorical  and  religious 
relation  of  the  type  and  the  antitype,  and  in  no  respects  prevents  bishops 
1Rev.  ii.  1  ff.  'Appendix  L. 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  95 

and  elders  from  still  belonging  to  the  community  from  which  they  arose, 
and  being,  so  to  speak,  its  emanation  and  elect  delegation.  But  evi- 
dently we  have  reached  a  critical  moment.  One  step  farther  and  all 
will  be  changed. 

The  change  will  consist  in  this:  that  the  bishop,  instead  of  repre- 
senting the  particular  community,  will  become  to  it  the  representative 
and  organ  of  the  unity  and  the  tradition  of  the  universal  Church.  This 
figure  of  a  Catholic  church,  inheriting  the  truth  and  guarding  it  against 
error,  rises  at  this  time  like  a  lighthouse  from  amidst  the  tempest  and 
confusion  provoked  by  the  unloosing  of  all  the  heresies.  For  this  uni- 
versal church  is  to  the  local  churches  what  the  general  is  to  the  particular, 
what  the  whole  is  to  the  divers  parts  which  compose  it.  Necessarily  the 
latter  are  subordinated  to  the  former.  If  the  bishop  represents  Catholic 
unity  and  verity,  the  particular  communities  are  in  this  unity  and  verity, 
they  remain  in  communion  with  the  universal  Church,  only  so  far  as  they 
are  in  communion  with  their  bishop.  It  is  by  him  alone  that  they  can 
be  what  they  are,  vital  parts  of  the  whole,  faithful  members  of  the  body 
of  Christ.  Thenceforth  all  former  relations  are  utterly  changed. 
Neither  the  bishop's  origin  nor  his  reason  for  being  is  found  in  his 
particular  community,  but  in  the  Catholic  Church,  whose  representa- 
tive and  organ  he  has  become  toward  those  over  whom  he  is  set.  He  no 
longer  depends  in  any  degree  upon  his  community;  his  community 
depends  upon  him.  Thus  for  the  first  time  we  have  the  Catholic  Church 
before  us,  and  the  evolution  whose  phases  we  have  followed  has  reached 
its  termination. 

The  sense  in  which  the  theory  of  Ignatius  was  modified  now  becomes 
clear.  For  his  mystical  conception  has  been  substituted  a  realistic  con- 
ception, capable  of  putting  upon  a  legal  basis  the  right  of  the  episcopate 
to  govern  the  Church  and  decree  its  faith.  According  to  it  the  Christ 
continues  to  direct  the  universal  Church  by  the  apostolic  college.  The 
tradition  of  the  apostles  founds  Catholic  unity.  To  preserve  this  tradi- 
tion and  make  it  dominant  the  bishops  must  be  their  legitimate  heirs  and 


t 

96  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 

successors.  Thus  apostolical  succession,  guaranteed  by  official  ordina- 
tion, becomes  the  real  foundation  of  the  authority  of  the  bishops.  The 
"  elders  "  whom  Ignatius  here  introduces  have  no  business  here.  They 
are  a  subsidiary  and  embarrassing  element,  and  will  disappear  by  preteri- 
tion.  The  line  of  inheritance  becomes  more  direct  and  visible,  from  God 
to  Christ,  from  Christ  to  the  apostles,  from  the  apostles  to  the  bishops, 
their  legitimate  successors.  Such  is  the  eminently  practical  simplifica- 
tion undergone  by  the  episcopal  theory  in  the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, as  we  find  it  in  the  writings  of  Irenaeus,  Hippolytus,  and  Ter- 
tullian. 

Three  profound  crises,  three  furious  conflicts  followed  by  three  vic- 
tories, brought  about  this  triumph  and  glorification  of  the  episcopate. 

From  the  crisis  of  Gnosticism  the  bishop  emerges  all-powerful,  as 
depository  and  custodian  of  the  rule  of  faith  called  apostolic.  He  is  the 
principle  of  Catholic  unity :  he  judges  sovereignly  of  the  value  of  doc- 
trines and  doctors,  like  the  apostles  themselves. 

The  struggle  against  Montanism  brings  him  new  victories  and  new 
conquests.  The  new  prophets  represented  the  primitive  liberty  and 
divine  inspiration.  They  proclaimed  the  reign  of  the  Paraclete  and  the 
Holy  Spirit.  They  said  that  the  Spirit  of  God  blows  ever  where  it  will 
and  cannot  be  bound  by  the  official  interests  of  the  Church.  The  reli- 
gious revival  which  they  preached  could  not  close  the  eyes  of  the  bishops, 
men  of  order  and  tradition,  to  the  danger  of  such  a  movement.  In  these 
free  inspirations  their  authority  encountered  an  obstacle  and  a  limit. 
The  new  prophets  were  not  backward  in  offering  strong  opposition  to 
the  administration  of  the  bishops — their  connivance  with  the  sins  and 
bad  morals  of  the  Christians  of  the  time,  their  too  ready  absolutions, 
their  complaisant  relations  with  a  corrupt  world  about  to  be  consumed 
by  the  fires  of  divine  wrath.  Montanism  was  the  aftermath  of  the  spirit 
and  piety  of  the  first  Christian  generation,  but  it  came  too  late.  It 
encountered  an  established  discipline  and  an  organised  hierarchy.  The 
bishops  had  already  brought  into  subjection  the  learned  men  who  till 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  »7 

then  had  been  free ;  they  bent  to  their  control  the  prophets  too.  To  the 
monopoly  of  authentic  tradition  they  added  that  of  the  true  inspiration. 
Thenceforth  the  bishops,  like  the  apostles  whose  ministry  they  continued, 
became  the  highest  organs  of  the  Spirit.  That  it  might  no  longer  be 
lawful  or  possible  to  oppose  inspiration  to  established  authority,  inspira- 
tion was  made  dependent  upon  authority,  and  its  channels  restricted  to 
the  hierarchy. 

So  with  regard  to  the  right  to  bind  and  to  loose,  the  jus  solvendi  et 
ligandi,  which  the  rigorists  denied  to  them,  was  it  not  a  part  of  the 
most  express  attributes  of  the  apostolate?  Did  not  the  Christ  give  it 
to  his  apostles,  and  therefore  did  it  not  revert  to  their  successors  the 
bishops,  with  all  the  rest  of  their  heritage?  In  vain  did  Tertullian, 
Hippolytus,  Novatian,  raise  indignant  protests  against  the  too  com- 
plaisant practices  of  a  Zephyrinus,  a  Callixtus,  or  a  Cornelius ;  they  must 
therefore  yield  to  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the  principle  which  they 
had  themselves  laid  down  in  the  heat  of  the  battle  against  the  Gnostics. 

The  Gnostic  doctors  being  conquered,  the  prophets  of  Montanism 
excommunicated  or  subdued,  it  was  the  turn  of  the  martyrs. 

They  had  taken  advantage  of  the  moral  authority  which  had  become 
theirs  through  their  faith,  their  sufferings,  and  the  distinction  with  which 
popular  veneration  endowed  them,  to  encroach  upon  episcopal  privileges, 
pardoning  sins,  reinstating  apostles,  imposing  their  will  upon  the  priest 
and  the  brethren.1  It  was  an  added  check  to  the  official  monopoly  of 
the  episcopate  opposed  by  individual  moral  authority.  But  it  also  soon 
disappeared. 

Every  remnant  of  opposition  finally  vanished  in  the  controversies 
which  convulsed  the  churches  of  Rome  and  Africa,  especially  during  the 
first  half  of  the  third  century,  of  which  divers  points  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline  were  by  turns  the  object.  There  were  reciprocal  excommuni- 
cations, persistent  schisms.  The  life  of  Cyprian  is  full  of  perplexities 
with  regard  to  backsliders  (lapsi),  the  baptism  of  heretics,  and  the  pun- 
ishment of  grave  sins. 

1  Appendix  LI. 


98  THE  THEORY  OF  CYPRIAN 

Once  again,  as  when  confronting  Montanism,  the  episcopate  was 
forced  to  yield  to  the  weight  of  Christian  sentiment.  It  pronounced 
in  favour  of  a  liberal  and  tolerant  discipline  against  the  excessive  severity 
of  Novatian  and  his  partisans,  and  by  this  accommodation  retained  its 
sovereignty  in  the  Church. 

Thus  by  a  slow  and  laborious  progress,  through  conflicts  and  pro- 
tests numberless,  these  rights  and  graces  which  in  the  beginning  were 
the  inalienable  possession  of  the  entire  community  were  accumulated  and 
concentrated  in  a  few:  the  right  of  permanent  rule  and  final  sentence, 
the  right  to  offer  the  Eucharistic  sacrifice  to  God,  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  power  of  admission  to  the  community  of  the  brethren,  and 
of  expulsion  therefrom.  The  common  property  of  the  entire  body  of 
believers  had  become  the  exclusive  monopoly  of  the  clergy.  The  Episco- 
pate, as  said  Hippolytus,  is  not  only  the  continuation  of  the  Apostolate, 
but  the  inheritor  of  all  its  supernatural  endowments,  maintaining  its 
superior  authority  in  living  exercise  in  the  Church  through  all  genera- 
tions.1 The  edifice  is  completed,  the  keystone  of  the  arch  has  been  put 
in  position.  Its  strong  framework  rests  secure.  The  genius  of  Rome 
was  its  architect,  and  when  it  builds  it  is  for  the  long  future.2 

VI 

The  Theory  of  Cyprla/n 

CATHEDBA    PETEI 

THE  theorist  of  the  Catholic  Episcopate  was  Cyprian,  Bishop  of  Car- 
thage.8 Neither  Irenaeus  nor  Tertullian  had  pressed  the  idea  to  its  ulti- 
mate consequences.  They  had  made  the  bishops  the  witnesses  and  cus- 
todians of  the  tradition,  but  they  were  willing  to  concede  to  them  only 
the  historic  mission  of  serving  as  intermediaries  between  the  apostles 
and  the  churches  of  their  day. 

With  Irenaeus  the  teachings  of  the  bishops  still  found  their  pattern 
1  Hipp,  "  PML,"  Prsef.,  4>  52  f .          » Appendix  LII.  •  A.  D.  348  to  366. 


THE  THEORY  OF  CYPRIAN  99 

and  verification  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Tcrtullian  on  his  side  pointed 
out  that  the  bishops  were  not  the  equals  of  the  apostles;  they  had  not 
inherited  the  apostolic  gifts  of  prophecy  and  inspiration,  nor  the  gift 
of  miracles,  nor  the  power  of  remitting  or  retaining  sins.  Religion 
still  remained  ideal  in  its  essence  and  transcendent  in  its  relations  to  the 
hierarchy,  but  these  were  scruples  cherished  only  by  men  of  sufficient 
education  to  have  some  knowledge  of  the  things  of  a  vanished  past.  The 
logic  of  facts  was  soon  to  do  away  with  these  last  obstacles.  In  fact 
they  disappeared  fifty  years  later  in  Cyprian's  definitive  theory. 

In  this  theory  the  bishops  were  not  the  mere  historic  witnesses  of 
the  apostolic  tradition,  they  were  themselves  that  tradition,  alive  and  in 
continual  exercise  in  the  Church  of  God.  The  apostolic  college  ever 
lived  in  the  body  of  bishops,  self -propagating,  self -perpetuating,  armed 
with  apostolic  authority,  endowed  with  apostolic  inspiration,  enjoy- 
ing apostolic  privileges,  and,  like  the  apostles,  sovereignly  distributing 
divine  graces.1  The  Episcopate  was  what  it  was  by  virtue  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  whose  plenary  abode  it  was,  and  who  by  it  was  manifest  and 
active  in  the  universal  Church.  The  same  Spirit  individualised  himself 
in  each  bishop  and  manifested  himself  identically  in  their  plurality.  The 
Episcopate  was  a  supernatural  organism,  each  member  of  which  repro- 
duced in  himself  the  unity  and  the  totality  of  the  entire  body.2 

This  being  the  case,  no  bishop  is  superior  or  inferior  to  another 
bishop.  No  one  can  give  or  receive  orders  from  his  equals.  In  Cyprian's 
system  there  is  no  place  for  a  universal  bishop,  for  an  episcopus  epis- 
coporum.  The  highest  authority  in  the  Church  can  only  reside  in  the 
assembly,  the  deliberative  council,  of  all  the  bishops  in  that  Christian 
and  Catholic  senate  which  is  known  as  a  council.3 

Nevertheless,  such  is  the  interior  logic  of  the  system  that  at  the  very 
moment  when  Cyprian  was  labouring  to  define  and  hedge  it  up,  he  him- 

1  Cyprian,  Epist.   xxxiii.  1,  Ixvi.  8,  iii.  3. 

»  Ibid.,  73,  7,  9;  48,  3,  66,  9,  etc. ;  Iv.  20 ;  "  De  Unit.  Eccl.,"  5. 

•Idem,  Epist.  Iv.  17. 


100  THE  THEORY  OF  CYPRIAN 

self  dropped  into  it  the  germ  of  a  new  evolution  which  should  cause  to 
issue  from  the  body  of  bishops  that  head  of  the  Episcopate,  that  bishop 
of  bishops,  from  whom  he  was  endeavouring  to  protect  it.  In  fact, 
Cyprian  gave  this  body  a  head.  Episcopal  unity  has  a  central  point, 
a  focus  whence  emanate  its  rays.  Thus  it  was  in  the  apostolic  college. 
No  doubt  each  apostle,  in  himself,  was  what  Peter  was.  Their  privi- 
leges were  the  same,  their  authority  equal.  But  that  unity  may  be 
manifest  it  must  have  a  centre  whence  to  radiate.  Peter  was  the  start- 
ing-point of  the  unity  of  the  Church,  and,  since  from  the  beginning  his 
seat  had  been  in  Rome,  the  Roman  Church  was  the  principal  church  in 
which  to  seek  the  unity  of  the  Catholic  priesthood.  Cyprian,  it  is  true, 
understood  the  primacy  of  the  bishop  of  Rome  in  a  purely  honourific  and 
symbolic  sense.  It  was  a  primus  inter  pares.  We  know  with  what 
vigour  he  checked  the  pretensions  of  Bishop  Stephen,  who  arrogated  to 
himself  the  right  to  give  laws,  in  the  name  of  Peter,  to  the  other  bishops 
and  to  the  Church  at  large.  But  what  availed  these  tardy  reservations? 
They  were  no  more  than  straws  thrown  across  a  current  which  thence- 
forth nothing  could  check. 

That  befell  Tertullian,  Cyprian,  and  the  entire  African  Church  in 
that  early  age,  which  in  our  own  time  befell  the  liberal  ultramontane 
school  of  Montalembert  and  Lacordaire  in  face  of  the  dogma  of  the 
personal  infallibility  of  the  Pope.  All  were  carried  away,  in  spite  of 
their  resistance,  by  the  irrresistible  logic  of  the  movement  which  they 
themselves  had  created,  but  which  they  were  impotent  either  to  direct 
or  to  restrain. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

THE    PAPACY 

I 

The  Formative  Law  of  the  Catholic  Hierarchy 

THE  internal  structure  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  has  the  regularity  and 
symmetry  of  a  work  of  nature.  One  might  think  it  a  gigantic  phenom- 
enon of  crystallisation,  in  which  the  same  forms  had  been  reproduced  in 
every  step  of  the  process,  from  the  first  molecule  to  the  entire  mass. 
In  the  whole  system  a  sort  of  rhythm  reigns,  and  the  same  law  explains  its 
entire  constitution. 

Take  the  initial  cell,  that  is  to  say,  the  independent  parish,  the  local 
church  of  the  time  of  Ignatius ;  you  will  find  there  the  outline  of  a  rudi- 
mentary hierarchy  with  its  three  constituent  elements;  at  the  base,  the 
Christian  community ;  above  that  the  presbyterate,  and,  issuing  from 
the  presbyterate  like  a  bud  from  the  end  of  its  stalk,  "  the  bishop,  who 
is  to  become  the  head  of  the  community."  In  the  second  stage,  the  time 
of  Cyprian,  the  same  phenomenon  is  repeated  in  the  great  body  of 
organised  Catholicism,  and  a  like  hierarchy  is  in  process  of  establishment. 
In  fact,  what  is  this  great  ecumenical  church,  if  not  a  single  vast  parish 
analogous  to  the  primitive  community?  What  the  presbyterate  or  the 
eldership  was  for  the  former,  the  body  of  bishops  is  for  the  latter.  It 
is  a  great  Christian  Republic,  having  at  its  head  a  sort  of  Senate,  of 
whom  the  bishops  are  by  equal  title  the  Conscript  Fathers.  Again  his- 
tory will  repeat  itself,  and  that  will  be  seen  in  religion  which  had  already 
been  seen  in  the  domain  of  politics,  when  the  patrician  republic  of  Rome 
made  way  for  the  monarchy  of  the  Caesars. 

In  that  plurality  of  bishops,  all  equal  among  themselves,  external 
unity  was  maintained  by  unity  of  spirit,  of  faith,  and  of  feeling,  just 

101 


102    FORMATIVE  LAW  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  HIERARCHY 

as  formerly  in  the  presbyterate  of  the  Catholic  churches.  But  Catholi- 
cism has  never  been  content  with  a  moral,  spiritual,  invisible  unity.  For 
it  religious  unity  must  be  translated  and  realised  in  unity  of  ecclesiastical 
administration,  in  the  legal  subordination  of  its  members  to  a  visible 
head,  whose  function  it  is  to  give  impulse  and  direction  to  the  entire 
body.  The  same  law  which  produced  the  local  bishop  of  a  parish  in  the 
time  of  Ignatius  must  produce  the  universal  bishop  in  the  ecumenical 
Church.  As  the  first  came  out  from  the  ranks  of  the  presbyteroi  to  whom 
he  at  first  belonged,  to  sum  up  in  himself  the  presbyterate  and  become 
the  senior  of  seniores,  so  the  second  came  out  from  the  body  of  bishops 
to  become  bishop  of  bishops,  to  sum  up  the  episcopate  in  a  single  person, 
and  contain  in  himself  the  soul  of  all  Catholicism. 

This  second  evolution,  which  completed  the  Catholic  hierarchical  sys- 
tem, was  infinitely  longer  and  more  stormy  than  the  other,  as  it  carried 
with  it  consequences  more  opposed  to  the  true  spirit  of  Christianity  and 
more  menacing  to  the  life  of  modern  society  and  the  independence  of 
the  civil  power.  But  the  logic  of  the  Catholic  notion  of  the  unity  of 
the  Church,  the  gradual  lowering  of  the  light  and  energy  of  conscience, 
the  cataclysm  in  the  Orient  brought  about  by  the  invasion  of  the  bar- 
barians, the  organisation  of  the  new  feudal  society,  the  diplomacy  of 
Roman  bishops,  persisting  through  the  centuries  and  under  all  circum- 
stances in  the  pursuit  of  a  single  aim,  the  co-operation  which  it  found, 
now  in  the  ambitions  of  princes  and  now  in  the  revolts  of  peoples,  all 
these  wrought  together  for  twelve  centuries  to  build  up  and  maintain 
the  power,  at  once  religious  and  political,  of  the  bishops  of  Rome.  It 
has  been  said  that  it  was  an  empire  "  not  less  visible  and  palpable  than 
the  Republic  of  Venice  or  the  Kingdom  of  France."  In  fact  its  history 
resembles  that  of  all  political  powers,  its  remote  and  humble  origin  is 
of  like  nature,  and  it  has  had  its  periods  of  prodigious  growth  and  its 
periods  of  humiliation  and  decline.  As  the  Kingdom  of  France  had  its 
Clovis  and  Charlemagne,  the  papacy  had  its  Leo  I.  and  Gregory  the 
Great.  The  sluggard  kings  of  the  first  and  second  races  reflect  less 


FORMATIVE  LAW  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  HIERARCHY     103 

shame  upon  them  than  the  Popes  of  the  ninth  century,  which  has  been 
called  the  age  of  the  Roman  pornocracy. 

And  as  France  was  well-nigh  shipwrecked  in  the  Hundred  Years' 
War,  so  the  papacy  well-nigh  perished  during  the  "  captivity  of  Baby- 
lon." It  is  the  same  succession  of  victories  and  defeats,  the  same  play 
of  concurrent  forces,  and  this  being  so,  why  should  not  its  history  be 
studied  by  the  same  methods,  and  explained  in  the  same  way? 

It  was  the  entirely  natural  result  of  the  movement  toward  concentra- 
tion which  had  been  going  on  in  the  Church  for  a  century,  when  from  the 
oligarchical  body  of  bishops  in  Cyprian's  time  a  single  bishop  attempted 
to  raise  himself  above  the  others  and  become  the  centre  and  head  of  Chris- 
tendom. That  the  bishop  who  thus  suddenly  became  predominant  should 
be  he  of  Rome  was  the  still  more  natural  result  of  the  part  played  in  his- 
tory by  the  city  which  had  conquered  the  world  and  become  the  metrop- 
olis of  the  Empire.  Since  Christianity  was  becoming  the  religion  of  the 
empire,  ought  not  Rome  to  be  the  capital  of  Christendom?  And  it  is  en- 
tirely conceivable  that  the  universal  bishop,  elevated  to  a  pedestal  formed 
by  the  fall  of  all  else  under  the  barbarian  invasion,  should  aspire  to  uni- 
versal rule;  that  such  men  as  Gregory  VII  and  Innocent  III  should 
dream  of  theocracy,  as  it  is  also  to  be  understood  how  this  dream  mis- 
carried, and  how  the  political  power  of  the  Popes,  after  reaching  its 
apogee,  should  from  that  point  begin  to  weaken  and  decline. 

None  the  less  is  the  papacy,  that  is,  the  empire  held  by  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  over  the  Western  world  for  fifteen  centuries,  one  of  the  most 
surprising  phenomena  of  history.  The  fortunes  of  Rome  in  ancient 
times,  and  the  empire  of  the  Caesars,  are  much  less  surprising,  but  the 
three  forms  of  government,  Republican  senate,  imperial  monarchy,  and 
papacy,  are  closely  interlinked,  and  are  explained  by  this  alliance.  We 
have  here  nothing  other  than  the  three  acts  of  a  single  drama,  three 
successive  periods  in  the  amazing  history  of  the  city  which,  long  before 
Christianity  arose,  was  called  by  the  people  the  Sacred  and  Eternal 
City. 


104    FORMATIVE  LAW  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  HIERARCHY 

The  world  abides  only  by  reason  of  change,  and  for  this  reason  eter- 
nity is  promised  to  no  institution  or  social  form.  Untiringly  does  time 
raise  up  each  and  cast  it  down  again. 

The  Church,  it  is  true,  could  not  be  content  with  a  natural  explana- 
tion of  the  papacy  and  its  fortunes.  She  claimed  divine  institution  and 
supernatural  privileges  of  such  a  nature  as  would  secure  the  chair  of 
St.  Peter  and  his  successors  from  the  common  lot  of  all  earthly  thrones. 
There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this  claim ;  until  the  rise  of  government 
by  popular  suffrage,  receiving  rights  and  powers  from  the  people,  it  was 
common  to  all  monarchies  of  ancient  and  modern  times. 

Those  fables  and  prophecies  which  almost  always  follow  the  event 
are  the  decorations  of  ancient  edifices,  not  their  foundations.  Legend 
follows,  it  does  not  create,  established  power.  To  maintain  its  theory 
the  Church  was  unconsciously  led  not  only  to  forget  the  real  evolution  of 
the  facts,  but  also  to  reverse  their  order,  and  put  in  the  first  place  those 
which  happened  last.  If  any  one  historic  fact  is  certain  it  is  that  the 
bishop  did  not  appear  until  the  completion  of  the  evolution  of  the  pres- 
byterate,  and  that  the  Pope  appeared  at  the  close  of  that  of  the  episco- 
pate. 

The  Vatican  places  the  instituting  of  the  papacy  by  Christ  earlier 
than  all  the  rest.  According  to  its  teaching,  the  institution  preceded 
the  Church  itself  by  the  personal  choice  of  Peter  as  chief  of  the  Apostles 
and  Vicar  of  Christ ;  so  that,  far  from  being  the  final  term  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  primitive  Christianity,  the  papacy,  according  to  it,  is  its  true 
beginning,  the  source  whence  all  things  originally  flowed,  as  well  for 
the  apostles  and  bishops  themselves  as  for  the  Church  at  large.1  The 
magic  spell  of  dogma  and  the  accommodating  imagination  of  faith  are 
continually  leading  uncritical  minds  into  like  anachronisms.  It  needs 
only  to  study  the  authorities  in  their  chronological  order  to  discover 
the  true  succession  of  events. 

1  Act.  Cone.  Vat,  " Constitntio  Pastor  -flStonuu,"  of  July  8,  18TO. 


SHARE  OF  ROME  IN  ORIGIN  OF  THE  PAPACY    105 

II 

The  Share  of  Rome  m  the  Origin  of  the  Papacy 

THE  epithet  "  Roman  "  has  become  so  firmly  attached  to  Catholicism  in 
speech  and  opinion  as  to  have  become  inseparable  from  it.  The  share 
of  Rome,  so  large  in  the  formation  of  the  Catholic  Church,  was  yet  more 
decisive  in  the  constitution  of  the  papacy.1 

In  the  first  period,  not  the  bishop,  but  the  Church  of  Rome  herself, 
as  a  Christian  collectivity,  represented  by  the  council  of  her  "  elders," 
intervened  in  outside  matters,  and  performed  an  office  of  assistance, 
arbitrage,  and  guidance  toward  her  sister  communities.  Let  no  one  say 
that  it  was  the  bishop  who  gave  her  this  important  function;  on  the 
contrary  it  was  she  who,  when  at  last  she  had  a  bishop,  gave  him  that 
preponderating  authority  over  the  others  which  he  very  soon  began  to 
exercise.2  We  say  advisedly  "  when  at  last  she  had  one,"  for  she  was  a 
long  time  without  any.  There  was  no  bishop  in  Rome  when  the  Apostle 
Paul  addressed  to  it  his  great  Epistle  in  the  year  58  or  59,  although 
the  Church  was  already  old  enough  to  attract  general  attention  and  to 
have  more  or  less  well  organised  ecclesiastical  offices.3  Nor  had  it  one 
fifty  years  later,  when  the  Roman  community  by  the  pen  of  Clement  sent 
wise  counsel  and  vigorous  exhortations  to  that  of  Corinth.* 

The  letter  of  Ignatius  to  the  Romans  and  the  first  revelations  of 
Hennas,  recorded  in  the  "  Pastor,"  bear  witness  that  in  the  reign  of 
Trajan  and  the  early  years  of  Hadrian  the  Church  of  Rome  was  still  liv- 
ing under  presbyterial  rule.5  What,  then,  gave  it  that  influence  and  au- 
thority of  which  it  was  already  possessed? 

1  Vide  supra,  the  chapter  on  the  Church. 

*  The  letter  of  Clement  of  Rome  is  anonymous ;  it  is  the  Church  of  Rome  writing 
to  that  of  Corinth.    In  like  manner  Ignatius  writes  to  the  Roman  community  without 
making  the  slightest  mention  of  the  bishop,  whether  in  the  superscription  or  the  body 
of  the  letter. 

*  Rom.  i.  1,  6,  xii.  4,  9. 

4  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  i.  44,  etc. 

8  Ignatius,  "  Epist  ad  Rom.,"  entire;  Hennas,  "  Pastor,"  Vis.  ii.  2,  4,  iii.  9;  Mand.  xi. 


106     SHARE  OF  ROME  IN   ORIGIN  OF  THE  PAPACY 

The  fact  is  self -explicable.  Only  those  need  be  surprised  by  it,  and 
seek  for  miracle  or  mystery  to  account  for  it,  who  are  unable  to  picture 
to  themselves,  or  can  only  vaguely  imagine,  the  social  condition  of  the 
world  under  the  Antonines,  the  part  played  in  it  by  Rome,  the  sacro- 
sanct city,  the  trammels  of  political,  economic,  and  moral  subordination 
by  which  even  the  remotest  parts  of  the  empire  were  bound  to  this  all- 
powerful  centre.  Reduced  to  the  condition  of  provinces  by  the  habit 
of  long  obedience,  all  the  nationalities  of  the  empire  looked  for  their  law, 
their  rights,  to  the  city  upon  the  Seven  Hills.  Rome  was  then  at  the 
apogee  of  her  greatness.  How  should  not  her  prestige,  her  authority, 
her  power  of  attraction,  have  passed  from  the  political  to  the  religious 
order? 

The  Church  modelled  her  forms  and  her  organisation  on  those  of 
the  empire.  The  logic  of  social  phenomena  is  the  same  in  all  do- 
mains. 

Representatives  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  world  flocked  to  Rome.  It 
was  an  epitome  of  the  empire.  Christians  of  every  race,  from  Orient 
and  Occident,  met  there  in  the  communion  of  the  same  worship,  and  this 
medley,  this  agglomeration,  made  this  Church,  as  it  were,  the  nucleus 
and  summary  of  all  Christendom.  She  alone  had  this  ecumenical  char- 
acter, and  while  all  the  others  were  shut  up  in  a  more  or  less  circum- 
scribed region,  she  had  ties  and  uninterrupted  relations  with  all  parts 
of  the  universe. 

In  addition  she  was  much  more  considerable  by  the  number  of  her 
members,  wealth,  and  influence,  and  she  generously  put  all  her  resources 
at  the  service  of  the  other  churches.  Since  Jerusalem  was  gone,  what 
other  city  could  have  contended  with  her  for  pre-eminence?  As  Rome 
was  the  political  capital  of  the  empire,  so  was  the  Church  of  Rome  the 
religious  capital  of  Christendom.  A  marvellous  spirit  of  government 
animated  her,  and  seemed  hereditary  in  her.  She  was  considered  as  the 
elder  sister  of  the  other  communities.  Elder  sisters  naturally  feel 
maternal  anxieties  and  take  on  maternal  ways.  They  hold  themselves 


SHARE  OF  ROME  IN   ORIGIN  OF  THE  PAPACY     107 

responsible  for  the  younger  and  weaker  members  of  the  family;  they 
easily  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right  of  guardianship  and  direction. 
Rome  apprehended  this  mission  from  the  beginning,  accepted  it,  and 
accomplished  it  in  a  manner  as  admirable  as  it  was  touching.  To  do 
this  she  had  only  to  obey  the  inspiration  of  Christian  love  and  the  senti- 
ment of  fraternal  unity.  Dionysius  of  Corinth,  writing  to  the  Romans 
in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  bears  the  noble  testimony  which  the 
entire  history  of  the  second  century  confirms :  "  It  has  been  your  cus- 
tom from  the  beginning  to  succour  your  brethren  in  a  thousand  ways,  and 
to  sustain  with  your  gifts  a  great  number  of  distant  churches,  being 
zealous  as  you  are,  O  Romans,  thus  to  continue  the  tradition  of  the 
Romans,  your  fathers." 

At  the  same  time  it  was  Rome  who,  in  the  name  of  all  Christendom, 
was  carrying  on  the  battle  against  Gnosticism  and  upholding  the  true 
doctrine.  She  was  not  apt  to  be  embarrassed  by  speculative  theories. 
Her  concern  was  not  to  find  arguments,  but  to  set  up  barriers  and  impose 
laws.  She  gave  the  other  churches  the  efficient  weapon,  with  the  secret 
of  its  use.  In  Rome  the  first  form  of  the  apostolic  symbol  was  drawn 
up,  and  soon  became  the  charter  and  the  bond  of  Catholic  orthodoxy. 
Again  it  was  Rome  who  put  an  end  to  the  vacillations  and  controversies 
of  the  Eastern  churches  touching  the  canonical  books,  and  determined 
the  almost  final  form  of  the  New  Testament  collection,  which  had  now 
become  the  sacred  book  of  Christians.  And  finally,  in  Rome  were 
wrought  out  the  earliest  lists  of  the  episcopal  successions  and  the  earliest 
constitutions  or  rules  of  ecclesiastical  laws.1 

It  is  impossible  too  greatly  to  admire  the  order  and  energy  which  the 
Roman  Church  brought  to  this  common  work  of  defence,  organisation, 
and  propaganda. 

At  the  same  time  human  weakness  also  appears.  The  sacredness  of 
the  end  pursued  diverted  attention  from  the  character  of  the  means  em- 
ployed. The  Roman  genius  was  never  troubled  with  scruples.  Politics, 
with  its  ambiguities  and  ingenuity,  early  found  a  place  in  the  councils 

1  Appendix  LIU. 


108     SHARE  OF  ROME  IN   ORIGIN   OF  THE   PAPACY 

of  the  Church  of  Rome.  The  last  quarter  of  the  second  century  and 
the  first  half  of  the  third  were  a  period  of  incredible  fecundity  in  legend, 
imposture,  and  apocryphal  literature  in  general.  Lists  of  bishops, 
apocryphal  acts,  apostolic  romances,  trophies  of  martyrs,  places  of  pil- 
grimage, an  efflorescence  of  marvellous  tales,  an  appetite  for  fables,  an 
excessive  credulity,  corresponded  in  the  Christian  world  with  the  recru- 
descence of  superstition  which  raged  in  the  pagan  world  in  the  time  of 
Severus.  Having  reconciled  in  its  convenient  orthodoxy  the  tendencies 
of  Peter  and  Paul,  the  Church  of  Rome  was  able  to  add  the  distinction 
of  these  two  great  apostolic  names  to  that  of  the  capital  city  of  the 
world.  This  crowning  work  of  her  politics  laid  the  foundation  of  her 
future  ecclesiastical  supremacy,  and,  as  Renan  said,  "  The  papacy  has 
in  its  cradle  a  mythical  duality  far  more  glorious  than  that  of  Romulus 
and  Remus."  1 

Such  is  the  pedestal  which  the  course  of  things  erected  in  advance 
for  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  It  was  natural  that  the  latter  should  inherit 
the  pre-eminence  which  first  accrued  to  the  Church.  But  it  was  not  done 
in  a  day.  It  was  a  sufficiently  long  evolution,  the  stages  of  which  may 
be  noted. 

At  the  close  of  the  first  century,  in  the  time  of  Clement,  there  were 
as  yet  no  bishops  in  Rome,  simply  presbyteri  or  hegoumenoi,  among  whom 
were  distributed  the  various  ecclesiastical  functions.  Toward  the  middle 
of  the  century  the  order  changed.  Anicetus  was  governing  the  Church 
with  a  truly  episcopal  authority.  At  this  time  the  aged  Polycarp  of 
Smyrna  made  the  journey  to  Rome  to  confer  with  Anicetus  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Easter.  The  churches  of  Asia  and  that  of  Rome  followed  differ- 
ing customs  in  the  celebration  of  the  festival,  and  referred  back  to  two 
equally  venerable,  but  contradictory,  traditions.  The  step  taken  by 
Polycarp  proves  without  gainsaying  the  price  which  the  churches  of 
Asia  were  willing  to  pay  to  remain  in  communion  with  that  of  Rome. 
But  the  fraternal  and  tolerant  attitude  of  Anicetus  proves  no  less  that 
he  did  not  deem  himself  to  have  the  right  or  authority  to  impose  any- 
1  Renan,  "  Marc-Aurfcle,"  p.  70, 


SHARE  OF  ROME  IN   ORIGIN  OF  THE  PAPACY     109 

thing  upon  his  colleagues,  least  of  all  upon  the  illustrious  Bishop  of 
Smyrna.  The  bishops  were  still  upon  a  footing  of  the  most  perfect 
equality.  Harmony  could  not  be  reached.  Each  maintained  his  right ; 
but  they  partook  of  the  Communion  together  and  the  reciprocal  auton- 
omy of  the  churches  was  recognised  and  accepted.1 

Half  a  century  later  the  same  discussion  recurred,  but  in  the  interval 
the  claims  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  had  increased.  Victor  does  not  imitate 
Anicetus.  He  seeks  to  close  the  controversy  by  an  act  of  authority.  In 
194  he  issues  an  imperious  edict  which  "  cuts  off  from  Catholic  com- 
munion and  declares  heretic  all  the  churches  of  Asia  or  elsewhere  who 
follow  not  the  Roman  custom  in  the  matter  of  Easter."  The  date  should 
be  noted;  it  is  the  true  birthday  of  the  papacy. 

For  the  first  time  a  bishop  of  Rome  speaks  with  authority  to  the 
other  bishops,  and  makes  himself  the  interpreter  and  arbiter  of  the  uni- 
versal Church.  Victor  acts  in  the  case  as  universal  bishop,  and  pro- 
claims those  churches  heretical  which  resist  his  authority.  From  this 
time  everything  grows  simple.  The  note  of  the  truth  is  no  longer  in 
the  doctrine,  but  in  the  external  attitude  which  one  may  take  toward 
Rome.  To  be  submissive  to  her  is  the  mark  of  orthodoxy ;  that  of  heresy 
is  to  be  separated  from  her. 

Such  a  coup  d'etat  could  not  pass  without  a  protest.  Polycrates  of 
Ephesus  and  the  other  bishops  of  Asia  were  not  alone  in  repelling  so 
unheard  of  a  claim.2  Irenaeus,  though  he  held  to  the  Roman  custom, 
condemned  Victor's  intolerance.  In  his  eyes  a  simple  question  of  rite 
could  not  justify  this  abuse  of  power  nor  break  the  unity  of  the 
faith.3 

But  the  way  had  been  opened.  The  example  given  by  Victor  would 
be  followed  by  his  successors.  We  must  take  note  of  the  protests  that 
arose,  because  they  demonstrate  the  novelty  of  the  claims  of  the  Bishop 

1  Irenaeus,  Letter  to  Victor  in  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  V.  24,  11  ff.,  IV.  26,  3;  and  Jerome, 
"  De  Viris,"  III.  17,  etc. 

1  Appendix  LIV.  'Appendix  LV. 


110     SHARE  OF  ROME  IN   ORIGIN  OF  THE  PAPACY 

of  Rome ;  but  we  must  also  inquire  why  protest  was  doomed  to  be  power- 
less in  the  long  run.  Those  who  uttered  it  seemed  not  to  be  aware  that 
they  themselves,  in  their  theory  of  the  episcopate,  had  posited  the 
premisses  of  the  thesis  which  later  they  resisted. 

If  bishops  are  the  successors  of  the  apostles  and  heirs  to  their  rights 
and  privileges,  is  not  he  of  Rome,  who  is  the  successor  of  Peter,  heir  also 
to  his  primacy?  Here  is  a  detail  worth  noticing.  It  was  at  this  time, 
under  Victor  or  Calixtus,  that  Roman  exegesis  for  the  first  time  applied 
to  the  successors  of  Peter  the  celebrated  passage  of  Scripture,  Tu  es 
Petrus,  and  drew  from  it  unanticipated  conclusions  in  favour  of  their 
supreme  authority.  In  vain  does  Tertullian  indignantly  protest  against 
such  an  interpretation ;  in  vain,  with  cutting  irony,  does  he  mock  at  the 
pretentious  and  even  pagan  titles  already  paraded  by  the  bishops  of 
Rome;  he  has  come  too  late;  in  his  turn  he  becomes  the  victim  of  the 
too  convenient  theory  invented  by  himself  to  close  the  mouths  of  heretics ; 
a  prescription  is  issued  against  him.1 

To  form  a  just  idea  of  the  situation  in  Rome  at  the  end  of  the  second 
century,  we  must  read  in  the  "  Philosophoumena  "  of  Hippolytus  the  pic- 
ture of  the  ecclesiastical  crisis  the  Church  was  then  passing  through,  as 
much  with  regard  to  Christological  doctrine  as  to  discipline.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  a  longer  or  more  violent  conflict  than  that  between  Hip- 
polytus and  Calixtus.2  Nothing  better  displays  both  the  animation  and 
the  futility  of  the  oppositions  encountered  by  the  papacy  at  its  very 
birth. 

The  third  century  was  filled  with  conflicts  evoked  by  the  same  im- 
perious claims  of  the  Roman  bishops,  now  on  one  point,  now  on  another. 
Episcopal  equality  as  formulated  by  Cyprian  was  at  that  time  the  com- 
mon and  consecrated  doctrine  of  the  Church.  Every  act  of  authority 
exercised  by  Rome  was  acutely  felt  and  judged  as  an  act  of  usurpation 
and  tyranny. 

The  most  notable  and  significant  of  these  conflicts  was  that  which 
1  Tertullian,  "  De  Pudic.,"  1.  *  Hippolytus,  "  Philosophoumena,"  ix. 


SHARE  OF  ROME  IN   ORIGIN  OF  THE  PAPACY     111 

broke  out  about  the  year  250  between  Stephen  of  Rome  and  Cyprian  of 
Carthage  on  the  subject  of  the  baptism  of  heretics.  Cyprian  desired 
a  friendly  and  peaceful  solution ;  Stephen  insisted  upon  his  own,  by  virtue 
of  his  prerogative  as  successor  of  Peter,  and  he  issued  a  decree  of  excom- 
munication against  all  who  should  not  submit.  Cyprian  taxed  this  pro- 
ceeding as  an  intolerable  abuse.  Two  councils  held  at  Carthage  ranged 
themselves  on  his  side.  Most  of  the  Eastern  bishops,  with  Dionysius  of 
Alexandria  at  their  head,  took  a  position  against  Stephen.  It  was,  as 
it  were,  a  league  of  almost  the  entire  episcopate,  who  felt  themselves 
menaced  in  their  rights  and  their  independence. 

Especially  important  is  the  letter  of  Firmilianus,  bishop  of  Csesarea. 
Nothing  more  incisive  has  ever  been  written  against  Roman  autocracy. 
"  Stephen  does  not  blush  to  call  Cyprian  a  false  Christian,  a  false  apostle, 
an  artisan  of  deceit  and  falsehood.  With  the  consciousness  of  being 
himself  all  that,  he  takes  the  initiative  and  throws  into  the  other's  face 
falsely  that  which  he  deserves  to  have  said  of  himself.  .  .  Righteous 
indignation  seizes  me  in  the  presence  of  such  overt  and  manifest  stupidity 
in  the  case  of  one  who  thus  glorifies  himself  instead  of  his  episcopate, 
who  insists  that  he  possesses  the  heritage  of  Peter,  upon  whom  rest  the 
foundations  of  the  Church,  when  he  is  himself  overthrowing  its  founda- 
tions." Addressing  himself  more  directly  to  Stephen,  he  adds :  "  What 
grave  sin  hast  thou  not  brought  upon  thy  head  by  separating  thyself 
as  thou  hast  done  from  so  many  churches !  Deceive  not  thyself ;  in  seek- 
ing to  shut  out  others  thou  hast  shut  thyself  out.  The  real  apostate 
is  he  who  thus  cuts  himself  off  from  the  communion  and  unity  of  the 
universal  Church.  Thinking  to  excummunicate  others,  thou  hast  excom- 
municated thyself."  Thus  could  an  orthodox  bishop  write  to  his  col- 
league of  Rome  in  the  times  when  the  claims  of  the  latter  to  the  uni- 
versal episcopate  were  beginning  to  assert  themselves.1 

These  remonstrances  reveal  no  less  the  tenacity  with  which  the  bishops 
of  Rome  appealed  to  their  prerogative  as  successors  of  Peter.  As  no 
1  Among  the  Epistles  of  Cyprian,  No.  75.  c.  25.  See,  also,  chaps.  2  to  6. 


112  THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR 

one  doubted  the  fact  of  this  succession  nor  contested  their  inheritance, 
nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  men  like  Victor,  Calixtus,  Stephen, 
should  have  drawn  from  their  position  the  practical  consequences  which 
redounded  to  the  advantage,  not  of  their  persons,  but  of  their  Sees.  Their 
divine  delegation  bound  their  consciences  even  more  than  it  flattered  their 
ambition.  Their  exegesis  and  history  had  neither  more  nor  less  value 
than  that  employed  by  Cyprian  as  the  foundation  of  his  theory  of  the 
episcopate.  They  employed  it  with  more  logic,  but  with  no  less  sincerity. 
To  justify  this  jurisdiction  of  a  universal  episcopate  they  could  not 
rest  satisfied  with  invoking,  as  concerning  the  other  bishops,  the  historic 
importance  of  the  city  of  Rome.  They  had  need  to  find  in  Catholic 
tradition  a  more  specifically  Christian  title  to  their  claim.  The  legend 
of  the  Cathedra  Petri,  generally  accredited  from  about  this  time,  met 
their  wish  half-way.  It  was  the  fictitious  title  needed  to  justify  the  real 
cause  of  their  pre-eminence.  How  this  legend,  which  was  the  fruit  and 
not  the  cause  of  the  evolution  of  the  Church,  had  been  progressively 
formed,  and  how  in  the  end  it  imposed  itself  upon  the  whole  Catholic 
Church,  a  mere  chronological  view  of  the  texts  relating  to  it  will  show. 


Ill 

The  Legend  of  St.  Peter's  Chair 

AT  the  close  of  the  second  century  the  legend  of  Peter  is  still  far  from 
being  simple  and  uniform.  It  has  two  branches  which  are  not  only 
distinct,  but  contradictory ;  the  more  or  less  Judaising  Ebionite  branch, 
represented  by  the  curious  romance  of  the  "  Clementine  Homilies,"  and 
the  orthodox  Catholic  branch  represented  by  the  Roman  tradition,  the 
theories  of  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  and  the  "  Acta  Petri  et  Pauli."  That 
which  essentially  distinguishes  the  two  traditions  is  the  part  played  in  them 
by  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  the  way  in  which  his  person  and  work  are  repre- 
sented. In  the  first  Paul  is  the  "  enemy  man,"  the  rebellious  heretic,  the 


THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR  113 

adversary  of  Christ,  of  his  apostles,  of  Peter  in  particular.1  He  is  de- 
picted and  stigmatised  in  the  lineaments  of  Simon  the  Magician,  the 
father  of  all  the  heresies  of  the  time ;  and  it  would  appear  that  all  Peter's 
travels  are  undertaken  only  to  oppose  and  unmask  him  and  finally  to  put 
him  to  confusion.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  Catholic  legend,  Peter  and 
Paul  are  in  perfect  harmony,  they  both  suffer  martyrdom  at  Rome  under 
Nero,  and  are  the  object  of  equal  veneration.  Little  by  little,  however, 
this  sort  of  equality  ceases ;  the  authority  of  Peter  gains  the  ascendency, 
his  position  is  established  as  prince  of  the  Apostles.  Paul  becomes  his 
humble  and  docile  auxiliary.  The  chair  of  Peter,  established  in  Rome, 
becomes  the  centre  of  Christendom  and  the  arbiter  of  all  controversies. 

In  these  two  legends  the  proportion  of  fiction  is  almost  equal.  Hav- 
ing the  same  historic  starting  point,  they  grew  side  by  side  in  the  service 
of  opposite  parties.  That  one  triumphed  over  the  other  is  because  the 
interests  which  it  served  became  dominant  in  the  Church,  and  eventually 
became  dominant  in  history. 

The  oldest  and  most  authentic  document  concerning  the  true  relations 
of  Peter  and  Paul  is  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  written  at  latest  in  the 
year  56  of  our  era.  Two  forms  of  Christianity  then  confronted  one 
another:  Jewish  Christianity,  with  Peter,  James,  and  John,  the  pillars 
of  the  Church,  at  its  head,  which  remained  strictly  faithful  to  the  Mosaic 
observances;  and  a  Christianity  of  Gentile  origin,  the  fruit  of  the  mis- 
sions of  Barnabas  and  Paul.  Jerusalem  was  the  capital  of  the  first, 
Antioch  the  metropolis  of  the  second.  ( 

To  restrain  the  zeal  of  certain  Christians  of  the  Pharisaic  sect  and 
prevent  a  schism,  conferences  were  held  in  Jerusalem.  In  them  Peter 
represented  the  "  Gospel  of  the  circumcision,"  Paul,  that  "  of  the  uncir- 
cumcision."  Harmony  was  maintained,  but  each  remained  faithful  to 
his  mission  and  to  the  method  adapted  to  it.2 

The  mind  of  Peter  appears  to  have  been  narrower  and  more  timid 

*"  Horn,  dementis,"  "  Ep.  Petri":  6  tx$pbt  4v3pwiros.  6  dvriicclncvot. 

1  Acts  ii.  46,iii.  1,  v.  42,  x.  9,  xxi.  23,  xxii.  12;  Gal.  ii.  1-9,  v.  2;  Acts  xv.  1  If.,  xiii.  Iff. 


114  THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR 

than  his  heart.  A  man  of  impulse,  he  often  fell  into  inconsistency.  He 
gave  a  new  example  of  this  weakness  of  character  during  a  visit  which 
he  made  at  Antioch.  Paul's  account  of  it  is  well  known  :  "  /  resisted 
him  to  his  face,"  he  said,  '*  because  he  stood  condemned.  For  before 
that  certain  men  had  come  from  James  he  had  communicated  *  with  the 
Gentile  Christians  ;  but  when  they  came,  he  drew  back  and  separated  him- 
self, fearing  the  circumcision.  And  the  rest  of  the  Jewish  Christians  dis- 
sembled likewise  with  him,  insomuch  that  even  Barnabas  was  carried  away 
with  this  dissimulation.  But  when  I  saw  that  they  walked  not  uprightly 
according  to  the  truth  of  the  Gospel,  I  said  to  Cephas  before  them  all, 
If  thou,  being  a  Jew,  livest  as  do  the  Gentiles,  and  not  as  do  the  Jews, 
how  compellest  thou  the  Gentiles  to  live  as  do  the  Jews  ?  "  etc.2  We 
are  not  told  what  was  Peter's  reply,  but  we  have  one  which  a  century  later 
was  attributed  to  him  by  the  Ebionites.  "  I  am  the  firm  rock,"  he  said, 
"  the  corner-stone  of  the  Church  against  which  thou,  by  resisting  me, 
art  in  revolt.  If  thou  wert  not  an  enemy,  thou  wouldst  not  go  about 
everywhere  calumniating  me.  .  .  When  thou  sayest  that  I  am  to 
be  blamed,  thou  accusest  God  himself  who  revealed  his  Christ  to  me: 
thou  accusest  Jesus,  who  called  me  blessed  for  having  received  this  revela- 
tion. If,  then,  thou  wilt  indeed  labour  with  me  in  the  cause  of  the 
truth,  first  learn  from  us  what  we  have  learned  from  him,  and,  when 
thou  hast  become  a  disciple  of  the  truth,  then  thou  mayest  be  our  co- 
worker." 

Here  we  see  what  an  abiding  impression  these  conflicts  made  upon  the 
Judaising  Christians  even  into  the  second  century;  and  how  unlike  the 
apostles  actually  were  to  the  church-window  figures  by  which  tradition 
loves  to  picture  them.  The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  not  the  sole  wit- 
ness to  these  divergencies  and  disagreements.  The  one  that  bears  the 
name  of  James,  the  origin  of  which  is  so  obscure,  brings  no  less  emphatic 
witness  to  a  resolute  polemic  against  Paul  and  his  formula  of  justifica- 


1  So  the  French,  and  so  the  significance  of  the  Greek,  avrtivSitv.—  Tram. 
•  Gal.  ii.  11  ff. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR  115 

tion  by  faith.  The  Revelation  of  John  shows  only  twelve  apostles,  and 
seems  to  exclude  a  thirteenth.  The  new  Jerusalem)  the  Church,  has 
twelve  gates  and  twelve  foundations,  upon  which  are  written  only  the 
names  of  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb.  Finally,  in  the  way  in  which 
certain  sayings  of  Jesus  are  brought  together  in  the  first  Gospel,  it  is 
difficult  not  to  feel  a  special  point  made  against  Paul  and  his  doctrine, 
while  Luke,  on  the  other  hand,  not  less  evidently  manifests  an  intention 
to  obliterate  all  such  marks  and  reconcile  all  adversaries.1 

Yet,  though  there  was  not  perfect  harmony  in  the  first  age,  the  unity 
was  never  broken.  Men  may  have  parted  in  bad  temper,  but  they  came 
together  again  with  pleasure.  The  apostles  had  a  common  basis  of  faith 
upon  which,  after  the  most  violent  storms,  they  still  found  themselves  in 
agreement  :  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  belief  in  his  resurrection,  the  expec- 
tation of  his  glorious  return.  In  the  letters  to  the  Corinthians  and 
Romans,  Paul's  attitude  toward  Peter  is  already  most  pacific.  They  had 
common  disciples,2  and  it  may  be  said  that  the  mass  of  Christian  con- 
verts, unable  to  rest  in  either  extreme,  moved  between  the  two  and  tended 
to  reconcile  them,  whether  they  would  or  not,  in  a  comprehensive  rule 
of  faith,  all  the  more  far-reaching  for  being  without  special  emphasis  on 
either  side.  This  Gentile-Christian  Christianity,  neither  Paulinian  nor 
Judaising,  formed  the  first  course  in  the  structure  of  Catholicism.  All 
the  literature  to  which  it  gave  birth,  Luke's  writings  being  its  master- 
pieces, tended  to  effect  this  work  of  common  edification,  of  conciliation 
and  peace. 

The  equilibrium  so  accurately  maintained  between  Peter  and  Paul 
in  the  book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  (about  the  years  85  to  90), 
and  which  is  still  preserved  in  the  short  twofold  notice  of  Clement 
of  Rome,  clearly  reveals  the  dominant  solicitude  of  the  Church  at  the 


'James  ii;  Rev.  xxi.  12-15;  Matt.  v.  19;  especially  the  words  <cai  SiSd^  otrrot  ro&t 
d.v0pd>irovt  .  eXiixwroi  *cXij^^<rrroi  iv  r%  £a<riXe/p  r&v  ofyavtav.  Luke  xv.  12-32;  xviii.  14; 
v.  1-10. 

*  Tradition  connects  Mark  and  Silvanus,  by  turns,  with  Peter  and  with  Paul. 
Barnabas  is  the  connecting  link. 


116  THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR 

close  of  the  first  century.1  Memories  of  the  primitive  period  were 
already  being  transfigured  behind  the  golden  haze  that  has  ever  since 
modified  them.  The  two  Catholic  Epistles  ascribed  to  Peter  contribute 
to  the  same  end.  The  first,  which  is  not  only  of  a  fine  Paulinian  inspira- 
tion, but  is  intimately  related  to  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  the 
Ephesians,  appears  to  propose  by  the  intermediary  of  Silvanus  to  recom- 
mend the  former  apostle  of  the  circumcision,  now  become  also  an  apostle 
to  the  Gentiles,  to  the  Paulinian  communities  of  Asia  Minor.  In  return, 
Peter  in  his  Second  Epistle  gives  a  formal  certificate  of  orthodoxy  and 
canonicity  to  the  letters  of  Paul,  of  whom  many  are  suspicious.8 

On  the  other  hand,  Ignatius  speaks  of  Peter  and  Paul  as  two  author- 
ities equally  received  by  Roman  Christians,3  and  Dionysius  of  Corinth, 
oblivious  of  history  and  of  all  former  rivalry  between  the  two  apostles 
or  their  partisans,  represents  them  as  the  joint  founders  of  the  church 
of  Corinth. 

The  apocryphal  "  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul,"  correcting  the  Ebionite 
legend,  detach  the  latter  from  the  person  of  Simon  the  Magician,  make 
him  the  lieutenant  of  Peter,  and  picture  the  two  as  exchanging  singu- 
larly artificial  mutual  attestations  of  orthodoxy  and  fidelity.4  The  work 
of  reconciliation  is  complete  by  the  end  of  the  second  century.  Rome 
claims  the  glory  of  their  martyrdom  and  their  apostolate,  from  which 
the  Roman  Church  and  the  bishops  derive  their  chief  title  to  au- 
thority. 

From  this  time  forth  the  legend  of  Peter  undergoes  a  new  develop- 
ment; it  rises  above  that  of  Paul,  becomes  more  luxuriant,  and  finally 
entirely  dominates  and  overshadows  it.  Paul,  the  apostle  of  subjective 
inspiration  and  Christian  liberty,  is  difficult  to  adapt  to  the  designs  of 
the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  The  legend  of  Peter,  on  the  contrary, 

1  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  5.    In  this  comparison,  as   in  that   of  the   Acts,   the 
part  of  Paul  still  remains  the  larger  and  more  brilliant  of  the  two. 

2 1  Pet.  iv.  12,  especially  the  strange  expression,  w$  Xoylfo/Mit ;  2  Pet.  iii.  15,  16. 

"Ad  Rom.  iv.  3. 

4"Acti  Petri  et  Pauli,"  Tischendorfs  edit.,  60,  62. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR  117 

naturally  became  the  foundation  and  justification  of  the  order  then  in 
process  of  establishment.  To  this  end,  Peter  is  supposed  to  have  come 
very  early  to  Rome — as  early  as  the  reign  of  Claudius.  Before  even  the 
first  missions  to  the  Gentiles  had  been  undertaken  he  had  chosen  the  cap- 
ital of  the  empire  to  be  the  capital  of  the  Church.  He  established  his 
Episcopal  See  in  that  city,  and  there  exercised  a  pontificate  of  twenty- 
five  years,  one  month,  and  nine  days.  He  suffered  martyrdom  there 
under  Nero,  leaving  his  authority  and  privileges,  with  his  sovereign  See, 
to  the  bishops  his  legitimate  successors.  As  early  as  the  beginning  of 
the  third  century  he  had  his  trophy,  his  commemorative  monument,  on 
the  Vatican  above  the  Eternal  City ;  that  of  Paul  was  outside  the  walls, 
on  the  road  to  Ostia;  an  illustration  of  the  unequal  esteem  in  which 
Catholicism  holds  the  memory  of  the  two  apostles. 

If,  with  some  small  application  of  the  critical  method,  we  ask  what 
actually  were  the  relations  of  Peter  with  the  first  Christian  community 
of  Rome,  we  learn  with  surprise  that  they  were  almost  nothing,  and  that 
never  was  there  a  vainer  glory.  The  origin  of  Christianity  in  Rome  is 
due  neither  to  Peter  nor  to  Paul;  it  can  be  traced  to  no  known  apostle, 
to  no  official  mission.  When,  about  the  year  58,  Paul  wrote  his  great 
letter  to  the  Romans,  the  Christian  community  had  already  been  long  in 
existence,  and  its  faith  was  proclaimed  throughout  the  whole  world. 
Peter  had  certainly  never  been  there.  About  the  year  44  we  find  him 
in  prison  in  Jerusalem.  Five  or  six  years  later  he  is  still  in  that  city 
and  present  at  the  conferences  then  held  there.  A  little  later  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  informs  us  that  he  was  in  Antioch.  He  was  not  in  Rome 
when  Paul  arrived  there  in  the  spring  of  the  year  61.  Nor  was  he  there 
about  the  year  63,  the  date  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  If  he 
went  there  a  year  or  two  later,  if  he  suffered  martyrdom  there — which  in 
all  rigour  we  may  conclude  from  the  note  of  Clement  of  Rome  and  from 
the  place  where  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  was  written — it  is  a  fact  of 

1  It  is  impossible  to  take  seriously  the  commentators  who   find   in   the  words, 
tit  trtpov  rbrov  of  Acts  xii.  18,  the  departure  of  Peter  for  Rome. 


118  THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR 

detail,  entirely  external,  which  may  interest  the  historian  but  which  has 
no  dogmatic  importance. 

No  connection  exists  between  the  foundation  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  the  historic  person  of  Peter;  there  is  still  less,  if  possible,  between 
Peter  and  the  Roman  Episcopate  of  the  subsequent  age.  We  found, 
early  in  our  study,  one  fact  which  dispenses  us  from  seeking  any  other. 
There  was  no  bishop,  properly  so-called,  in  Rome  before  the  reign  of 
Hadrian.  The  Christian  community  of  this  city  came  into  existence 
spontaneously  and  was  organised  in  all  liberty.  It  had  its  elders  and 
deacons,  that  is  to  say,  its  directing  council  or  Senate,  before  the  arrival 
of  either  Paul  or  Peter,  and  it  is  vain  and  gratuitous  to  imagine  that 
the  latter  effected  any  change  in  the  established  order.1 

The  most  mythical  part  of  the  legend  is  the  supposed  episcopate  of 
Peter.  No  writer  of  the  early  centuries  speaks  of  any  such  episcopate. 
It  was  still  too  well  known  that  an  apostle,  whose  mission  it  was  to  carry 
the  gospel  everywhere,  could  not  consent  to  be  bound  to  any  particular 
place  by  an  ecclesiastical  function  which  was  essentially  sedentary. 
Therefore  the  ancient  authors  never  say  anything  else  than  this :  "  Hav- 
ing founded  the  Church  of  Rome  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul  chose  and 
installed  its  first  bishop."  2  It  is  not  until  much  later,  with  intent  to 
articulate  the  episcopate  more  closely  with  the  apostolate,  that  Peter 
was  admitted  to  the  series  of  bishops  as  the  first  link  in  the  mystic  chain 
on  which  all  the  other  links  depended. 

During  all  these  long  centuries  writers  have  not  been  able  to  come 
to  an  agreement  as  to  the  order  of  the  names  of  the  first  successors  of 
Peter.  Nothing  more  clearly  proves  the  legendary  character  of  all 
the  lists  which  have  been  drawn  up,  than  their  variations  and  the  explana- 
tions which  have  been  offered  for  them.  The  one  which  became  official 
in  the  Catholic  Church  so  became,  not  because  it  is  more  certain,  but 
because  ecclesiastic  authority  imposed  it. 

In  the  light  of  these  results  of  historic  criticism  let  us  take  up  again 
1  Rom.  xii.  6-12.  » Appendix  LVI. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  ST.  PETER'S  CHAIR  119 

and  study  the  celebrated  text :  "  Thou  art  Peter,  and  on  this  rock  I 
will  build  my  church  "  (Matt.  xvi.  18).  First  of  all  we  note  this  inter- 
esting fact:  it  did  not  bear  the  meaning  and  dogmatic  significance  as- 
cribed to  it  by  theologians  of  the  papacy  until  the  third  century,  precisely 
when  the  bishops  of  Rome  found  the  need  of  it  to  sustain  their  newborn 
pretensions.  Tertullian,  the  first  to  make  known  to  us  this  politically 
inspired  exegesis,  strongly  opposed  it,  declaring  that  the  words  of  Jesus 
and  the  privilege  they  imply  regard  only  the  person  of  Peter  and  his 
part  as  initiator  of  the  first  apostolic  preaching.  It  is  without  the 
slightest  right  that  the  Roman  bishops  apply  it  to  themselves  and  their 
See.1  Still  more  independently  of  all  polemic,  Origen  on  his  part  de- 
clares that  the  promise  of  Jesus  does  not  refer  to  the  person  of  Peter, 
who  a  little  later  is  called  Satan,  but  to  the  fact  itself  of  which  Peter  at 
that  moment  was  the  organ,  and  upon  which  the  Church  was  founded.2 
Finally,  Cyprian  finds  in  the  apostolic  primacy  of  Peter  only  a  symbol 
and  manifestation  of  the  unity  of  the  Church:  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
remains  a  primus  inter  pares.3 

It  appears,  then,  that  at  the  very  time  when  this  Roman  exegesis 
was  being  elaborated  it  gave  to  contemporaries  the  impression  of  novelty. 
Whatever  may  be  the  meaning  of  this  much  discussed  text,  and  whatever 
honour  it  may  reflect  upon  the  apostle  Peter,  it  is  clear  that  little  advan- 
tage accrues  from  it  historically  to  the  bishops  of  Rome,  once  it  has  been 
demonstrated  that  there  is  no  link  between  themselves  and  Peter,  none 
between  Peter  and  Rome,  and  finally,  as  we  shall  see,  none  between  Rome 
and  the  religious  thought  of  Jesus. 

From  a  religious  point  of  view,  Rome  is  entirely  outside  of  the  horizon 
of  Christ.  He  proclaimed  a  kingdom  which  was  shortly  to  come  down 
from  heaven.  Nothing  was  more  contrary  to  his  conception  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  than  the  idea  of  a  monarchical  church  modelled  upon  the 
laws  of  the  empire  of  the  Csesars,  with  a  similar  hierarchy  and  the  same 

1  Tertullian,  "  De  Pudic.,"  21. 

*  Origen,  "  Comin.  in  Mathseum,"  xvi.  18,  ToL  xii.  10,  ed.  of  Lonamatsch. 

•Appendix  LVII. 


120  FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

capital.  He  never  dreamed  of  instituting  a  lieutenant  or  vicar  to  suc- 
ceed himself,  and  if  anyone  appears  to  have  held  such  an  office  tempo- 
rarily in  the  Messianic  communities  of  Palestine,  while  awaiting  the  com- 
ing of  the  King,  it  was  James,  the  brother  of  the  Christ  according  to 
the  flesh,  and  certainly  not  Peter,  who  appears  as  subordinate  to  James, 
as  well  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
as  in  the  first  tradition  of  the  Ebionites.1 

Is  the  text  Tu  es  Petrus,  in  its  present  form,  to  be  attributed  to  Jesus  ? 
It  is  more  than  doubtful.  It  was  not  in  that  first  collection  of  the  "  Logia 
of  the  Lord  "  which  Luke  had  before  him  and  reproduced  in  his  Gospel. 
No  more  does  Mark  find  it  among  the  reminiscences  which  he  collected 
from  the  preaching  of  Peter  himself.  The  Fourth  Gospel  also  omits  it, 
and  it  may  even  be  said  that,  perceiving  it  gradually  f.orming  in  tradi- 
tion, the  writer  tried  to  efface  it  by  setting  the  beloved  disciple  in  oppo- 
sition to  Peter.  The  book  of  Acts  has  nothing  of  it,  Paul  has  no  sus- 
picion of  it.  The  Epistles  of  Peter,  the  Apocalypse,  all  the  other  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  are  absolutely  ignorant  of  it.  It  makes  its 
appearance  sixty  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  in  the  last  redaction  of 
our  Gospel  of  Matthew,  which  is  a  compilation  of  the  diverse  elements. 
It  is  very  probable  that  it  owes  its  existence  to  an  inspiration  of  Judais- 
ing  or  Ebionite  circles,  who,  after  the  death  of  James,  desired  to  oppose 
Peter's  authority  to  that  of  Paul.  It  is  the  development  and  transfor- 
mation in  oral  tradition  of  words  doubtless  spoken  by  Jesus  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  change  of  Simon's  name  to  Cephas.  Here  we  discover  the 
humble  source  of  the  legend  of  Peter,  and  from  this  point  we  can  follow 
it  down  the  course  of  history,  easily  tracing  its  entire  development. 

IV 

First  Age  of  the  Papacy — Grandeur  and  Decadence 

HAVING  found  the  first  and  effective  cause  of  their  pre-eminence  in  the 
political  importance  of  the  city  of  Rome,  the  Roman  bishops  discovered 

1  Appendix  LVIII. 


FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY  121 

that  the  divine  consecration  and  assured  pledge  of  their  future  fortune 
were  equally  enfolded  in  the  legend  of  Peter.  Heirs  of  a  twofold  an- 
tiquity, the  past  and  present  glories  of  the  one,  the  future  promises  of 
the  other,  gave  them  a  natural  right  to  pre-eminence  among  all  other 
bishops.  The  rapid  conversion  of  the  subjects  of  the  empire  exalted 
ever  higher  their  episcopal  throne,  which  promised  soon  to  stand  on  a 
level  with  the  throne  of  the  Caesars,  until  the  day  when,  in  the  West  at 
least,  it  should  occupy  its  place. 

Such  a  destiny  can  appear  marvellous  and  supernatural  only  to  those 
who  are  incapable  of  keeping  in  mind  the  historic  causes  which  contrib- 
uted to  it.  The  character  and  ability  of  the  bishops  of  Rome,  the  con- 
troversies which  rent  the  Church,  and  in  which  with  consummate  pru- 
dence they  took  part  only  as  arbiters  and  judges  of  last  resort,  the  series 
of  catastrophies  which  caused  the  downfall  of  the  Western  Empire  and 
left  the  civil  power  vacant,  the  rise  of  the  barbarian  princes,  the  venera- 
tion of  the  new  peoples  who  had  received  from  Rome  the  benefits  at  once 
of  civilisation  and  of  the  faith,  all  these  contributed  to  the  formation 
of  a  new  power,  and  the  triumph  of  a  religious  policy  inspired  by  pro- 
found faith,  which  through  many  centuries  and  many  vicissitudes  never 
knew  failure. 

Notwithstanding  the  obscurity  which  half  envelops  them,  we  may 
say  that  the  early  bishops  of  Rome  were  men  eminent  in  ability  and  prac- 
tical sense.  They  seem  to  have  succeeded  one  another  in  office  only  to 
follow  one  another  to  martyrdom.  The  uniformity  of  their  policy  was 
no  less  admirable  than  that  of  their  virtues.  While  all  around  them  was 
in  decline  and  decay,  their  power  alone  increased  unintermittently.  It 
was  the  one  centre  of  attraction  and  unity.  Its  religious  character 
protected  it  from  any  individual  moral  weakness,  and  it  may  even  be 
said  that  it  profited  as  much  by  the  violences  and  intrigues  of  the  ambi- 
tious as  by  the  virtues  of  the  saints.  For  from  the  beginning  the  Roman 
See  was  occupied  by  men  of  both  these  characters.  Witness  that  Calix- 
tus  whom  the  Romans  canonised,  and  whose  adventurous  career  has 


122  FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

recently  been  made  known  by  another  saint,  the  author  of  the  "  Philo- 
sophoumena."  What  fraud  had  first  secured,  popular  credulity  made 
sacred  and  inviolable. 

The  conversion  of  Constantine,  which  would  seem  likely  to  enhance 
the  power  of  the  bishops  of  Rome,  had,  in  fact,  the  opposite  result. 
Becoming  the  head  of  the  Church,  he  proposed  to  rule  it.  It  was  the 
Christian  emperors,  not  the  Popes  of  that  period,  who  decided  the 
Catholic  faith.  Addressing  himself  to  the  bishops,  Constantine  assumed 
the  manner  of  a  bishop.  He  called  himself  exterior  bishop,  instituted  by 
God  like  the  others.  Thus,  like  his  pagan  predecessors,  he  united  in  his 
person  the  rights  of  emperor  and  of  sovereign  pontiff.  Every  other 
bishop  must  yield  precedence  to  him.  It  was  Constantine  who  convoked 
the  Council  of  Nica?a ;  he  formally  opened  it  and  approved  and  sanctioned 
its  discussions.  His  successors  followed  his  example.  Never  was  the 
office  of  bishop  of  such  small  dignity  nor  his  person  more  overshadowed.1 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  Oriental  church  to  fix  the  rank  and  measure 
the  authority  of  the  episcopal  sees  according  to  the  political  importance 
of  the  cities  in  which  they  were  established.  The  Occidentals,  on  the 
contrary,  looked  first  of  all  to  their  apostolic  origin  and  the  authority  of 
the  apostles  who  had  instituted  them.  Thus  the  two  could  never  agree. 
After  the  founding  of  Constantinople  the  Councils  of  Chalcedony  and  of 
Constantinople  decided  that  the  bishop  of  the  new  Rome  had  the  same 
authority  as  he  of  the  old  capital,  leaving  to  the  latter  a  purely  hon- 
orary primacy.  Rome  protested  against  these  decisions,  but  the  East 
always  maintained  them.  Schism  was  looming  up  in  the  future.2 

It  became  inevitable  with  the  division  of  the  empire.  The  unity  of 
the  Church  had  been  modelled  upon  that  of  the  empire  of  the  Caesars, 
which  united  all  people  in  one  body  subject  to  its  law.  But  from  the 

1Eusebius,  "Vita  Const.,"  IV.  24,  I.  44;  Mansi,  VI.  p.  733;  Gieseler,  I.,  part  2, 
p.  181;  "Cod.  Theod.,"  XVI.  1,  2;  Socrates,  "Hist.  Eccl.,"  IV.,  proem. 

2  Council  of  Nicaea,  Can.  6;  Council  of  Chalcedony,  Can.  17,  and  especially  Can. 
28.  The  Council  of  Constantinople,  in  381,  Can.  3,  decided  for  the  same  equality 
between  the  old  and  the  new  Rome.  {Vide  Mansi,  vol.  VII.  p.  369.) 


FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY  123 

fourth  century  two  worlds  were  being  formed,  differing  more  and  more 
in  genius,  language,  social  customs,  and  interests.  The  ancient  Roman 
unity  was  about  to  be  shattered ;  its  reflection,  the  unity  of  the  Church, 
could  not  long  survive  it. 

Dogmatic  dissensions  were  not  the  real  cause  of  the  rupture.  Behind 
these  dissensions  a  social  evolution  was  obscurely  taking  place,  which  was 
to  determine  the  future  of  the  Christian  world  as  of  the  political.  It 
is  easy  to  see  that  with  two  empires  there  would  be  two  Churches,  each 
claiming  to  be  orthodox  and  Catholic.  Here  was  the  obstacle  to  the 
dream  of  a  universal  episcopate,  so  dear  to  Rome ;  and  to  our  own  days 
it  has  not  yet  been  overcome. 

That  which  limited  and  weakened  the  authority  of  the  bishops  of 
Rome  in  the  East  had  the  effect  of  strengthening  and  aggrandising  it 
in  the  West.  Rome  was  the  only  see  in  that  part  of  the  world  which 
dated  back  to  the  apostles.  From  her  Africa,  Gaul,  Spain,  and  later 
Britain  and  Germany  received  the  Christian  faith.  The  only  security 
for  the  orthodoxy  of  the  churches  of  these  provinces  was  in  their  com- 
munion with  the  Roman  Church.  The  bishops  of  Rome  applied  them- 
selves to  draw  ever  more  closely  the  ties  which  gratitude  and  respect  had 
first  knitted,  and  every  day  saw  them  more  successful.  In  those  times 
of  confusion  and  distress  their  intervention  was  often  invoked.  The 
Council  of  Sardis  in  349  recognised  that  bishops  condemned  in  their  own 
provinces  had  a  right  to  appeal  to  him  of  Rome,  and  that  the  latter  could 
judge  or  cause  judgment  to  be  given  in  final  appeal.1  Such  is  the  origin 
of  the  custom  of  appeal  to  the  court  of  Rome.  Than  it,  nothing  more 
efficiently  contributed  to  extend  the  Roman  jurisdiction  and  give  to 
the  Bishop  of  Rome,  at  least  in  the  West,  the  appearance  and  authority 
of  a  universal  bishop. 

At  this  juncture  appeared  in  the  See  of  Rome  a  man  of  extraordinary 
virtue,  eloquence,  and,  above  all,  political  genius.  Leo  the  Great  (440 
to  462)  begins  the  series  of  those  grand  papal  figures  who  must  be  ranked 
with  the  founders  of  dynasties  and  leaders  of  nations.  He  was,  in  fact, 

1  Appendix  LIX. 


124  FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

the  first  Pope  in  history  and  the  true  founder  of  the  papacy.1  In  the 
first  place,  it  was  he  who  defined  the  theory,  that  is,  the  fundamental 
dogma,  of  the  papacy,  and  gave  it  its  final  formula ; 2  in  the  next,  he 
displayed  an  incomparable  energy  of  will,  clearness  of  vision,  eloquence 
and  diplomacy  in  transferring  theory  into  fact.  By  the  favour  of 
events,  it  seemed  for  a  moment  that  he  might  realise  his  dream,  and  he 
certainly  would  have  done  so  had  success  been  possible.8  Finally,  in  the 
political  order,  in  view  of  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians  and  the  collapse 
of  the  Empire  and  institutions,  he  saw  how  to  bring  the  newborn  papacy 
before  the  eyes  of  a  panic-stricken  people  as  the  only  method  of  salva- 
tion, the  sole  power  capable  of  protecting  them.  No  doubt  it  is  a  legend 
which  shows  Attila,  the  scourge  of  God,  recoiling  before  Leo  I,  who  came 
to  him  in  pontifical  robes  bearing  the  flaming  sword  of  St.  Peter.  But 
this  legend  none  the  less  expresses  with  striking  truth  the  confidence  of 
the  nation  and  the  mission  of  protection  and  salvation,  which,  in  the  uni- 
versal distress,  was  intrusted  to  the  Church  and  its  head.  The  van- 
quished peoples  crowded  around  the  Holy  See  like  sheep  having  no  shep- 
herd, and  the  barbarians  stopped  short  with  a  sort  of  religious  terror 
before  ceremonies  which  appealed  to  their  imagination,  and  a  mysterious 
power  against  whom  their  victorious  swords  were  powerless ;  they  found 
it  more  profitable  to  gain  over  this  power  to  approve  of  their  conquests 
than  to  persecute  and  destroy  it.  Thus  began  the  long  political  activity 
of  the  Popes,  and  the  theocratic  idea  was  born. 

For  a  brief  time  the  victories  of  Justinian  brought  the  bishops  of 
Rome  once  again  under  tutelage,  but  this  did  not  last  long.4  They  found 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  Franks,  then  rising  to  eminence  in  Gaul,  both  a 
fulcrum  and  a  weapon  by  which  they  might  by  one  act  free  themselves 
from  the  overlordship  of  Constantinople  and  the  tyranny  of  the  Arian 
Goths,  or  later  of  the  Lombards. 

1  Appendix  LX.  3  Appendix  LXI. 

1  He  obtained  from  Valentinian  III.  an  imperial  law  by  which  the  authority  of 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  over  all  the  Western  Churches  was  formally  established. 
4  Appendix  LXII. 


FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY  126 

The  alliance  became  still  closer  between  the  family  of  Charles  Martel 
and  the  papacy.  Pepin  and  Charlemagne  needed  the  Pope  to  consecrate 
their  usurpation  of  the  throne :  the  Pope  needed  them  in  order  to  become 
an  independent  sovereign.  He  gave  his  benediction  and  received  in  ex- 
change that  which  has  ever  since  been  known  as  "  the  patrimony  of  St. 
Peter." 

We  must  here  note  the  second  step  in  the  progress  of  the  theocratic 
idea,  latent  in  the  very  institution  of  the  papacy.  In  the  year  800,  on 
Christmas  Day,  in  the  basilica  of  St.  Peter,  Pope  Leo  III  placed  the 
imperial  crown  upon  the  head  of  the  prince  of  the  Franks,  amidst  the 
plaudits  of  the  populace,  who  cried  "  Long  live  the  emperor  Charles 
Augustus,  whom  God  himself  has  crowned!  "  Not  only  did  the  Pope 
thus  annihilate  the  pretensions  of  the  Greek  emperors  of  the  East,  not 
only  did  the  Roman  Pontiff  take  the  attitude  of  one  who  held  the  crown 
of  the  Cassars  to  confer  it  upon  him  who  had  restored  the  Empire,  but 
also  and  above  all  he  stood  before  the  Catholic  world  as  the  representa- 
tive of  God,  like  another  Samuel,  deposing  Saul,  crowning  David,  and 
possessing  the  theocratic  right  to  make  and  unmake  kings.  The  more 
glorious  the  power  of  the  new  emperor,  the  more  it  contributed  to  exalt 
the  Pope,  who  seemed  to  have  bestowed  it  upon  him. 

Another  and  a  more  obscure  event  no  less  served  the  cause  of  the 
papacy.  This  was  the  successive  appearance  of  several  collections  of 
letters  or  decrees  of  former  bishops  of  Rome,  of  which  the  most  celebrated 
were  the  false  Decretals  of  the  Pseudo-Isidore.  A  dominant  characteris- 
tic of  this  period  is  the  tendency  to  consider  all  religious  questions  as 
questions  of  canon  law,  and  to  settle  them  by  appeal  to  ancient  authorities 
which  had  fixed  the  rule  to  be  followed  and  the  solution  to  be  adopted 
in  all  cases.  This  series  of  documents  was  devised  to  establish  and  enrich 
this  jurisprudence;  most  of  them  were  apocryphal  or  falsified,  attributed 
to  ancient  Popes  from  Clement  of  Rome  to  Damasus,  and  constituting 
the  most  colossal  and  barefaced  fraud  of  which  history  has  to  tell. 
By  it  the  sovereign  intervention  of  the  papacy  in  diocesan  affairs,  its 


126  FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

most  extravagant  pretensions,  its  most  recently  assumed  privileges,  were 
confirmed  and  justified  as  the  constant  teaching  of  the  Church  from  the 
beginning.  The  entire  policy  of  the  Popes  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  in- 
spired by  these  documents;  they  found  in  them  a  support  which  no  one 
could  call  in  question,  an  inexhaustible  arsenal  and  a  venerable  authority 
before  which  all  resistance  was  vain.1  A  curious  history  might  be  written 
of  the  falsifications  made  in  the  interests  of  the  papacy  all  through  its 
history.  Authentic  documents  were  interpolated,  false  ones  fabricated. 
The  writings  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  Fathers  were  not  more  re- 
spected than  the  acts  of  Councils.  "  Nowhere  have  there  been  more  bare- 
faced falsifications  and  lies  than  in  this  domain,"  wrote  the  aged  canon 
Dollinger  in  holy  wrath.  Let  us  restrain  our  indignation.  These  pious 
falsifiers  unquestionably  acted  in  all  good  conscience.  Respect  for  truth 
is  a  modern  virtue,  the  child  of  historic  criticism.  Violence,  subterfuge 
and  falsehood  have  always  had  their  part  in  the  founding  and  triumph 
of  dynasties.  Why  should  we  not  find  them  in  that  of  the  papacy  ? 

In  another  respect  the  papacy  is  no  exception  to  the  general  rule  of 
human  authorities.  All  enduring  dynasties  have  their  weak  kings  and 
infamous  princes.  The  history  of  the  French  monarchy  brings  the  wit- 
ness of  the  last  of  the  Merovingians  and  the  Valois.  The  papacy  has 
had  its  reasons  for  shame  as  for  glory,  its  unworthy  members  and  its 
great  men.  The  great  pontificate  of  Gregory  VII  was  preceded  by  a 
period  of  more  than  a  century,  branded  with  the  name  of  the  Pornocracy, 
during  which  courtesans  disposed  of  the  tiara,  and  a  child  of  twelve, 
eaten  up  with  vices,  occupied  the  seat  of  Gregory  I  and  Louis  the  Great. 
After  Benedict  IX  and  John  XV  Hildebrand  fortunately  arose,  just  as 
Henry  IV,  Richelieu,  and  Louis  XIV  followed  Charles  IX  and  Henry 
III;  were  it  otherwise  no  institution  would  be  enduring. 

The  papacy  triumphed  over  its  humiliation  and  trials,  because  its 
roots  were  sunk  deep  in  the  religious  faith  of  the  peoples,  and  after  every 
crisis  it  drew  fresh  vigour  therefrom.  In  those  times,  when  the  feudal 
system  was  founding  a  new  governing  principle  upon  the  triumph  of 

1  Appendix  LXIU. 


FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY  127 

brute  force,  the  Church  alone  represented  intellectual  and  moral  power, 
the  principle  of  justice  and  charity.  The  prevailing  ascetic  and  sacer- 
dotal conception  of  Christianity  inspired  a  general  sense  of  a  radical 
opposition  between  the  natural  life  and  the  supernatural  life,  the  flesh  and 
the  soul,  the  clergy  and  the  people,  the  convent  and  the  world,  the  Church 
and  the  State.  The  dogma  of  the  natural  corruption  of  the  human  race 
made  the  divine  help  of  the  priest  everywhere  necessary.  In  this  an- 
tagonism of  a  lost  world  and  a  redeeming  Church,  the  Church  naturally 
assumed  and  claimed  a  mission  to  guide  and  govern.  God  had  put  into 
her  hands  the  guardianship  of  the  peoples,  and  as  the  Roman  pontiff 
was  the  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  princes  of  the  earth,  equally  with  the 
people,  owed  her  the  submission  due  to  Divinity. 

It  was  not  in  vain  that  at  this  time  an  ascetic,  not  to  say  a  monk, 
was  raised  up  to  be  the  reformer  of  the  clergy  and  the  restorer  of  the 
theocracy.  The  dream  of  Hildebrand  was  a  mystic  dream.  In  the  reli- 
gious life  he  had  learned  the  strange  new  secret,  born  of  Christianity,  of 
how  to  conquer  the  world  by  renunciation,  to  gain  wealth  by  the  vow  of 
poverty,  and  to  secure  absolute  power  by  the  profession  of  extreme 
humility.1  But  there  was  this  fatal  contradiction:  when  the  monastic 
life  by  its  virtues  had  succeeded  in  dominating  the  age,  the  latter  on  its 
part  entered  the  monastery  with  its  wealth  and  corrupted  it.  It  is  the 
vicious  circle  in  which  every  theocracy  is  lost.  The  method  might  be  the 
best  if  worked  out  by  angels ;  in  human  hands  it  became  the  worst.2 

At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  dream  of  Gregory 
seemed  about  to  be  fulfilled.  In  Innocent  III  the  papacy  dominated 
Europe,  it  disposed  of  the  crowns  of  kings  and  the  consciences  of 
peoples.  This  triumph  was  of  short  duration;  with  the  next  century 
everything  was  transformed.  Scholasticism  completed  its  glorious  evolu- 
tion and  fell  in  ruins  under  the  criticism  of  nominalism.  The  national 

1  Appendix  LXIV. 

*  See  the  bitter  criticisms,  the  grieved  complaints,  the  impious  satires  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  provoked  by  the  clerical  life,  and  calling  for  a  reform  in  the  Church  from  its 
head  to  its  members. 


128  FIRST  AGE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

sentiment  awoke,  the  moral  and  ecclesiastical  horizon  broadened,  the  world 
entered  upon  new  paths.  Boniface  III  put  forward  the  same  pretensions 
as  his  predecessors,  but  he  was  powerless  to  maintain  them.  He  died 
from  the  humiliation  of  Anagni.  From  this  moment  we  rapidly  descend 
the  farther  slope  of  the  mountain.  The  theocracy  has  been.  Four 
great  crises  mark  this  decline,  each  ending  in  a  new  defeat  of  papal  pre- 
tensions. The  first  is  the  struggle  of  Boniface  VIII  against  Philip  the 
Fair  with  the  States-General  of  France  at  his  back.  It  ended  in  the 
emancipation  of  the  royal  power  and  the  humiliation  of  the  papacy,  rent 
with  intestine  dissensions  and  captive  at  Avignon.  Two  centuries  later 
it  was  the  Reformation,  which,  invoked  for  three  centuries  by  the  most 
notable  voices  in  the  Church,  at  last  broke  forth  in  tempest  at  the  voice 
of  Luther,  proclaimed  the  autonomy  of  the  Christian  conscience,  and 
detached  half  Europe  from  the  Church.  Still  later,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion swept  away  the  divine  right  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  name  of 
modern  law  and  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  completed  the 
threefold  secularisation  of  political  power,  of  civil  life,  and  of  human 
thought. 

Finally,  in  our  own  day,  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  new  kingdom  of 
Italy,  crowned  by  the  entrance  of  the  Italians  into  Rome  in  1870  and 
the  retreat  of  the  Pope  into  the  Vatican.  The  States  of  the  Church, 
created  by  politics,  are  swept  away  by  politics  after  a  thousand  years. 
Memorable  date  in  history,  striking  demonstration  made  by  the  very  force 
of  things,  that  nothing  here  is  immutable,  that  is  to  say,  immortal ! 

In  these  crises  the  papacy  assuredly  did  not  die,  but  it  was  trans- 
formed. Having  ceased  to  be  a  power  in  the  political  order,  it  became 
a  dogma  in  the  religious  order.  It  remains  to  consider  it  under  this  last 
aspect. 


THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE  129 


The  Infallible  Pope 

IT  will  be  interesting  to  seek  the  precise  moment  when  the  personal  infal- 
libility of  the  Roman  bishop  made  its  first  appearance  in  history. 

We  are  at  once  led  to  the  initial  reflection  that  at  the  present  time 
the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  makes  his  authority:  formerly  it  was  his 
authority  that  made  his  infallibility.  It  is  with  the  dogma  of  infalli- 
bility as  with  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Divine  right  never 
founded  a  kingdom  nor  established  any  dynasty,  but  the  kingdom  once 
founded  and  the  dynasty  established,  divine  right  appeared  to  consecrate 
and  protect  both. 

The  degree  of  inf allibility  accorded  to  the  Pope  has  always  been  pro- 
portioned to  the  measure  of  authority  which  he  had  acquired  and  exer- 
cised. When  his  authority  became  absolute,  his  infallibility  became 
entire.  He  who  could  arrogate  to  himself  the  sovereign  right  to  com- 
mand the  conscience  could  not  be  conceived  of  as  erring.  This  is  why 
the  idea  of  infallibility  dates  from  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  theocratic 
pontificate  of  Gregory  VII.  Thomas  Aquinas  is  the  first  among  the 
Doctors  who  brought  it  forward  as  an  article  of  Catholic  theology. 

It  is  easy  to  explain  its  genesis.  Since  the  third  century,  by  virtue 
of  the  saying  of  Christ  that  his  Church  shall  never  fail,  it  has  been  a 
dogma  of  the  Catholic  faith  that  the  truth  always  and  of  necessity 
resides  in  the  authentic  tradition  of  the  Church  and  the  legitimate  suc- 
cession of  the  bishops.  By  them  the  apostolic  teachings  were  trans- 
mitted, continued,  guaranteed,  and  always  exempt  from  error.  Now  in 
the  West  Rome  alone  could  boast  of  having  an  episcopal  see  of  apostolic 
origin.  It  was  universally  lauded  as  the  faithful  guardian  of  the  sacred 
deposit  of  tradition.  It  became  an  axiom  that  to  be  orthodox  one  must 
be  in  accord  with  Rome.  From  this  point  the  movement  is  evident. 
Infallibility,  which  had  been  the  attribute  of  the  one  universal  Church, 


130  THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE 

became  with  the  lapse  of  time  concentrated  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  and 
thence  passed  finally  to  its  bishop.  When  the  Pope  was  held  as  the  head 
and  mouthpiece  of  the  Church,  how  could  infallibility  be  expressed  by  any 
other  head  or  any  other  lips  ?  Must  not  he  who,  in  his  own  person,  sums 
up  the  entire  Church,  possess  all  its  attributes  and  exercise  all  authority 
in  its  name? 

This  perfectly  logical  system  was  the  work  of  centuries.  The  ancient 
order  did  not  foresee  it,  the  Scriptures  show  no  trace  of  it.  The  early 
bishops  of  Rome  have  no  suspicion  of  it.1  Originally,  Jerusalem,  An- 
tioch,  Alexandria,  Ephesus,  and  Corinth  vaunted  themselves  as  apostolic 
sees.  These  churches  found  in  their  several  traditions  the  same  doctrinal 
guaranty  which  Rome  found  in  its  own.  Therefore  they  were  always 
persistent  in  maintaining  their  independence.  Their  bishops  always 
claimed  to  be  peers  of  their  colleagues  of  Rome,  praising  them  warmly 
or  blaming  them  with  the  greatest  freedom,  according  as  they  seemed 
worthy  of  praise  or  blame.  Paul  vigorously  reprimands  Peter  at  An- 
tioch.  Ignatius  commands  the  fidelity  of  the  Romans;  Anicetus  earns 
the  gratitude  of  the  churches  for  his  position  with  regard  to  Polycarp. 
On  the  other  hand,  Victor,  by  his  insolence,  brings  upon  himself  the  cen- 
sure of  Irenseus  and  the  protests  of  all  the  Eastern  bishops.  St.  Hip- 
poly  tus  exposes  and  stigmatises  the  intrigues  of  Calixtus.  Tertullian 
rallies  him  upon  the  ambitious  and  pagan  titles  with  which  he  adorns 
himself.  When  Stephen  of  Rome  excommunicated  Cyprian,  Firmilian, 
the  other  bishops,  and  the  synods  of  Carthage  make  reply  that  Stephen 
has  simply  excommunicated  himself.  These  are  not  isolated  facts ;  they 
form  the  tissue  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Church  during  long  centuries.  In 
fact,  the  one  thing  which  is  absolutely  lacking  is  the  idea  of  the  personal 
infallibility  of  any  bishop  soever. 

If  this  belief  had  then  existed,  the  history  of  the  Church  during  the 
first  thousand  years  of  its  existence  would  have  been  entirely  different. 
Starting  from  the  hypothesis  of  a  Pope  with  the  sovereign  and  universal 
authority  of  a  Pius  IX  or  a  Leo  XIII  officiating  at  Rome  from  the 

1  Appendix  LXV, 


THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE  131 

beginning,  the  entire  early  ages  become  absolutely  unintelligible.  The 
groping  attempts  of  second-century  Catholicity  to  constitute  itself  an 
organised  Church,  the  general  attitude  of  the  bishops,  the  episcopal 
system  of  Cyprian,  the  interminable  dogmatic  controversies,  the  convo- 
cation and  the  conduct  of  councils,  the  rivalries  of  the  great  metropolises 
of  Christianity,  the  late  birth  of  Roman  legends,  and  finally,  the  schism 
which  definitively  separated  the  orthodox  and  Catholic  East  from  the 
Western  Church,  when  at  last  the  papacy  had  been  constituted,  are  alike 
inexplicable.  No ;  the  sovereign  power  of  the  bishops  of  Rome  was  not 
constituted  from  the  beginning ;  it  was  slowly  formed  and  developed  by 
the  most  laborious  of  evolutions. 

By  his  genius  and  the  favour  of  circumstances,  Leo  I  won  the  victory 
for  Catholic  orthodoxy  in  the  East  and  at  the  Council  of  Chalcedony,  and 
in  the  contest  between  the  Monophysites  and  the  Nestorians  he  appeared 
like  a  second  Athanasius ;  but  more  than  one  of  those  who  preceded  and 
followed  him  in  the  Roman  See  gravely  compromised  its  authority  and 
were  stamped  with  solemn  disapproval.  St.  Hippolytus  formally  accused 
Calixtus  of  heresy,  and  no  apology  could  wash  him  from  that  stain ; l 
Liberius  (352-366)  twice  signed  a  semi-Arian  confession  and  abandoned 
the  cause  of  Athanasius  2  that  he  might  return  from  exile  and  rescue 
his  seat  from  his  rival,  Felix;  Vigilius  (537-555)  stands  convicted  of 
using  dogmatic  duplicity  to  gain  the  episcopal  throne  as  well  as  of  incon- 
stancy and  infidelity.3  Finally,  the  most  celebrated  of  all  on  the  list 
of  heretical  bishops  or  popes,  Honorius  I  (625-638),  was  anathematised 
by  the  Ecumenical  Councils  and  afterward  by  his  successors  in  the 
papacy,  who  each  by  turn,  on  entering  upon  office,  pronounced  him 
accursed.4 

To  tell  the  truth,  such  sentences  surprised  no  one  at  that  time  because 
no  one  had  yet  any  idea  of  the  personal  infallibility  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome.  It  began  to  germinate  with  the  entirely  unforeseen  extension  of 

1 "  Philosophoumena,"  be.  11.  •  Appendix  LXVI. 

1  Appendix  LXVII.  « Appendix  LXVIII. 


132  THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE 

the  papal  power,  especially  after  the  appearance  of  the  "  False  De- 
cretals." *  In  the  tenth  century  the  Popes  were  despised,  but  not  the 
papacy.  With  Gregory  VII  the  Pope  became  the  vicar  of  God,  and  the 
bishops  merely  the  vicars  of  the  Pope.2  The  latter  held  in  custody  all 
the  legislative  power  of  the  Church  to  such  a  point  that  the  Councils 
had  merely  advisory  power.  Even  more:  the  Pope  is  the  master  of  the 
religious  law  which  he  promulgates;  it  binds  others,  but  it  never  binds 
him.'  Gregory  claimed  entire  and  perfect  holiness  as  well  as  infalli- 
bility as  the  head  of  the  Church,  if  not  in  his  own  person,  as  Bishop  of 
Rome ;  and  he  was  right  when  we  consider  that  sin  never  fails  to  obscure 
the  moral  sense.4  But  this  claim  never  prevailed.  It  was  too  strongly 
contradicted  by  the  lives  of  certain  Popes.  The  very  idea  of  infal- 
libility was  still  so  foreign  to  the  Church  in  general  that  in  his  contro- 
versies with  Boniface  VIII  Philip  the  Fair  was  not  afraid  to  summon  the 
Pope  before  a  Council  General  to  be  judged  and  condemned  as  demoniac 
and  heretic,  because  of  his  errors,  his  vices,  and  his  senseless  pretensions, 
which  were  visibly  inspired  by  the  devil.  None  the  less  was  the  thesis  of 
papal  infallibility  put  forward,  with  the  arguments  by  which  it  finally 
prevailed,  in  the  bull  of  this  pontiff,  Unam  Sanctam,  which  has  become 
the  charter  of  the  power  of  the  Roman  Curia.5  Thomas  Aquinas,  de- 
ceived by  false  Greek  documents  which  had  lately  been  added  to  the 
earlier  ones,  lent  his  great  authority  to  the  support  of  this  doctrine,  as 
has  already  been  said." 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  doctrine  must  have  succumbed  before  the  long 
scandal  exhibited  by  the  papacy  during  the  period  called  the  Captivity 
of  Babylon,  when  two  or  even  three  Popes  were  claimants  of  the  tiara, 
and  no  one  could  tell  which  was  the  true  successor  of  Peter.  Extraordi- 
nary things  were  done  at  the  Council  of  Constance.  Two  Popes  were 

1  Appendix  LXIX.  *  Appendix  LXX.  '  Appendix  LXXI. 

4  Gregory  "  Dictat."  23.  "  Quod  romanus  Pontifex  si  canonice  fuerit  ordinatus 
mentis  B.  Petri  efficitur  sanctus."  Logic  will  have  it  so,  but  history ! 

6  Appendix  LXXII.  'Appendix  LXXIII. 


THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE  133 

cited  to  appear,  were  judged  and  deposed:  a  third  was  elected.  Never 
was  situation  more  curious  than  the  attitude  of  the  Roman  Curia  before 
this  council.  Was  it  or  was  it  not  an  ecumenical  council  acting  with 
authority  ?  To  recognise  it  as  such  is  to  recognise  the  council  as  superior 
to  the  papacy,  as  to  all  other  dignitaries  of  the  Church.  To  deny  it 
is  to  invalidate  the  election  of  Pope  Martin  V,  and  by  that  act  to  create 
a  vacancy  in  the  apostolic  chair;  it  is  to  raise  a  doubt  as  to  the  legiti- 
macy of  the  cardinals  created  by  this  Pope,  and  in  consequence,  of  all 
the  Popes  elected  since  that  time.  The  conception  of  a  religious 
authority,  regularly  transmissible  like  an  extrinsic  right,  is  a  fine  thing. 
But  history  makes  strange  breaches  in  it  which  not  all  the  subsequent 
canonists  can  avail  to  repair. 

The  fifteenth-century  councils  having  shown  themselves  as  impotent 
to  reform  the  Church  as  to  save  it  from  anarchy,  a  reaction  in  favour 
of  the  papacy  set  in.  In  the  general  disorder  a  fixed  point,  a  centre  of 
authority,  was  essential.  It  was  easy  for  the  Roman  canonists  to  per- 
suade political  authorities  that  this  point  of  resistance  could  be  nowhere 
else  but  in  Rome.  Heads  of  States  lightly  sacrificed  the  franchises  of 
national  churches.1  The  papacy  knitted  together  the  broken  threads  of 
its  tradition  and  resumed  all  the  pretensions  of  the  great  Popes  of  the 
Middle  Ages.2 

Thenceforth  the  Popes,  without  explicitly  claiming  infallibility, 
adopted  the  policy  of  acting  in  all  things  as  if  it  was  theirs,  letting  no 
expression  of  a  contrary  opinion  pass  without  disapproval.  They  could 
not  prevent  the  Council  of  Trent,  but  they  so  arranged  things  that  their 
authority  should  be  neither  checked  nor  restricted.  The  Council  let  pass 
without  protest  the  bull  by  which  Pius  IV  arrogated  to  himself  the  right 
to  apply  its  decisions.  The  Popes  summoned  to  the  Court  of  Rome  all 
important  discussions  and  ecclesiastical  causes.  Thus  they  accustomed 
people  and  kings  to  see  in  them  the  final  tribunal  from  which  there  was 

1  Francis  I  in  1517  yielded  to  the  Pope  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  of  Charles  VIT. 
'Bulls  of  Pius  II,  "  Execrabilis"  (1459),  and  Leo  X,  "  Pastor  ^ternus"  (1516). 


134  THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE 

no  appeal,  the  judge  of  all  controversy,  the  supreme  oracle  of  the 
truth. 

The  last  opposition  in  the  Church  was  that  offered  by  Gallicanism, 
which  came  to  the  front  in  1682  in  four  declarations  of  the  clergy  of 
France,  inspired  by  Bossuet  and  supported  by  Louis  XIV.  The  papacy 
made  haste  to  pass  censure  upon  them,  and  its  diplomacy,  making  the 
most  of  the  weakness  and  hesitancy  of  an  aged  and  timorous  king,  found 
it  easy  to  reduce  them  to  the  category  of  Platonic  aspirations  and  dead 
letters.  In  the  far-famed  Company  of  Jesus  Rome  had  gained  an  incom- 
parable army,  which  from  the  sixteenth  century  made  the  cause  of 
authority  its  own.  The  final  triumph  of  infallibility  is  the  real  triumph 
of  Jesuitism  in  the  Church. 

It  has  sometimes,  but  mistakenly,  been  said  that  the  true  head  of  the 
Church  was  the  general  of  the  Jesuits.  The  correct  statement  is  that 
since  the  proclamation  of  the  new  dogma  the  entire  hierarchy  has  become 
a  Company  of  Jesus,  of  which  the  Pope  is  general. 

Everything  indeed  for  two  hundred  years  past  has  contributed  to 
the  last  triumph  of  the  papacy;  as  much  the  oppositions  of  its  adver- 
saries as  the  zeal  and  cleverness  of  its  partisans;  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, uprooting  the  clergy  of  France  from  their  native  soil;  Napoleon 
by  his  concordat  giving  over  the  parish  priests  to  episcopal  absolutism, 
and  putting  the  bishops  into  the  hands  of  the  Pope.1  Even  the  liberal 
Catholics,  strangely  blind,  taking  sides  with  the  papacy  against  Gallican 
liberties  and  the  civil  power,  laboured  no  less  efficaciously  for  the  triumph 
of  the  Vatican  dogma  than  the  writers  of  the  pure  theocratic  school,  from 
Joseph  de  Maistre  to  Louis  Veuillot. 

By  1850  the  issue  of  the  struggle  was  no  longer  doubtful.  To  put 
his  power  to  a  sort  of  test,  Pius  IX,  having  consulted  the  bishops  by 
personal  letters,  decreed  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  upon  his  own  authority.2  The  indifference  with  which  the 

1  Taine,  "  Les  origines  de  la  France  contemporaine,"  V. 

*A.  Reville,  "  Encycl.  des  sc.  relig.,  art.,  "Conception  Immaculee";  E.  Chastet, 
"  Hist,  du  Christ."  V.,  p.  171. 


THE  INFALLIBLE  POPE  135 

Church  accepted  this  coup  d'etat  was  a  sign  of  the  times.  A  Council 
General  might  be  convoked,  but  it  would  find  nothing  to  do  but  to  abdi- 
cate in  favour  of  the  Pope,  and  confirm  in  law  that  which  existed  in  fact. 
The  resistance  of  the  minority  was  as  brilliant  as  it  was  vain.  The  end 
toward  which  the  papal  power  had  long  and  perseveringly  laboured  could 
not  but  come  to  pass.1 

That  the  papacy  should  thus  reach  a  sort  of  apotheosis  is  marvellous 
but  not  miraculous.  Every  stage  in  it  from  the  beginning  is  logical,  and 
linked  together  as  in  the  history  of  great  empires.  The  same  tendency 
which  forced  the  bishop  up  from  the  ranks  of  the  presbyters  of  the 
apostolic  age  brought  the  papacy  forth  from  the  episcopate.  Dominated 
by  the  political  necessity  of  manifesting  its  unity  in  a  visible  organ, 
ready  to  sacrifice  everything  for  this  pagan  idol,  the  Church  naturally 
came  to  substitute  a  concrete  person  for  the  abstract  unity  of  the  bishops 
and  to  change  its  former  aristocratic  and  parliamentary  rule  into  an 
absolute  monarchy.  Thus  the  republic  of  patrician  Rome  became  the 
empire  of  the  Caesars.  All  the  powers  and  privileges  of  the  Church  were 
concentrated  in  one  single  head.  He  who  had  been  merely  the  servitor 
was  now  the  master.  Theocracy,  driven  from  the  civil  order,  was  realised 
in  the  religious  order.  As  the  fountain  of  dogma  and  priesthood,  of 
sacramental  grace  and  canonical  law,  the  Pope  now  verily  appears  to 
decile  consciences  as  the  representative  of  God  on  earth. 

But,  oh,  irony  of  human  things !  The  end  of  it  all  is  that  this  quasi- 
divine  power,  in  exalting  itself,  has  destroyed  its  sure  foundation,  and 
henceforth  rests  only  upon  itself,  that  is  to  say,  upon  its  own  affirmation, 
with  no  possible  justification  either  in  history  or  in  reason.  As  Canon 
Dollinger  said :  "  It  is  all  very  simple.  The  Catholic  believer  will  say, 
*  I  believe  in  the  infallible  Pope  because  the  Pope  has  said  that  he  is  in- 
fallible.' '  In  fact,  that  is  the  whole  story.  The  papacy  created  itself, 
and  then  kept  itself  alive  by  devouring  all  the  rest — authority  of  bishops, 
authority  of  councils,  authority  of  tradition,  authority  of  the  Church. 
The  papacy  has  shattered  all,  annulled  them  all.  Its  power  is  henceforth 

1  Appendix  LXI V. 


136  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

simply  a  power  of  fact,  exposed,  like  every  other  fact,  to  the  hazards  of 
history.  History  brought  it  into  being,  history  explains  it,  history  will 
do  away  with  it. 

In  fact,  it  needs  nothing  else  than  history  to  cause  that  which  the 
dying  Montalembert  called  "  the  Vatican  idol  "  to  totter  upon  its  pedestal 
of  clay.  But  these  inescapable  revelations  are  of  further  portent.  They 
bring  out  two  facts  into  a  startling  light.  First,  the  personal  infalli- 
bility of  the  Pope  is  a  religious  fiction,  invented  for  the  maintenance  of 
an  outworn  political  system.  Second,  the  Ecumenical  Council,  by  giving 
its  sanction  to  this  fiction  as  divine,  demonstrates  by  this  very  fact  that 
the  infallibility  of  councils  is  as  fictitious  as  that  of  Popes.  In  truth, 
if  the  Pope  is  not  infallible,  no  more  is  the  council  which  declares  him  so. 
But  what,  in  its  turn,  becomes  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  with 
no  organ  for  its  expression?  Thus  the  system  of  Catholic  authority 
breaks  down  in  the  middle,  succumbing  under  the  weight  of  the  conse- 
quences of  its  first  principle. 

The  apologists,  therefore,  are  working  at  cross-purposes.  The  more 
they  succeed  (no  difficult  matter)  in  showing  that  the  dogma  of  infalli- 
bility is  the  logical  conclusion  of  the  premisses  of  Catholicism,  the  more 
they  constrain  independent  minds  to  go  back  and  revise  the  premisses. 

VI 

The  Future  of  the  Papacy 

THE  papacy  will  doubtless  last  a  good  while  longer.  We  are  not  con- 
cerned to  calculate  how  long.  Our  work  is  that  of  the  historian,  not 
of  the  prophet.  We  would  simply  try  to  determine  the  new  conditions 
of  existence  to  which  she  must  henceforth  accommodate  herself. 

Those  who  observe  the  course  of  human  events,  being  accustomed  to 
trace  the  succession  of  all  living  organisms  in  nature,  and  in  history  that 
of  empires,  institutions,  and  all  forms  of  society,  find  that  a  pretty  poor 
argument  which  consists  in  saying,  "  The  papacy  has  lasted  fifteen  cen- 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY  137 

tunes,  therefore  it  is  eternal."  It  is  almost  as  if  we  should  say  of  a 
robust  old  man,  "  He  has  lived  for  eighty  years,  therefore  he  will  live 
forever."  What  are  fifteen  centuries  in  the  infinite  series  of  ages  ?  Time 
carries  away  or  modifies  everything  to  which  it  gives  birth,  and  the 
papacy  will  be  no  exception.  A  thousand  historical  causes  in  the  reli- 
gious, social,  and  philanthropic  order  gradually  brought  about  its  tri- 
umph; causes  of  the  same  nature  are  everywhere  at  work,  if  not  to 
destroy,  at  least  to  transform  it.  It  was  one  thing  in  ancient  days, 
another  in  the  Middle  Ages,  another  in  modern  times ;  it  will  be  another 
in  the  future.  Its  destiny  depends  upon  its  gift  of  self-adaptation  to 
the  necessities  of  modern  times.  It  will  live  so  long  as  it  retains  this  gift ; 
when  it  is  exhausted  that  will  happen  which  happens  to  every  institution : 
it  will  have  lived. 

In  the  later  centuries  of  its  history  we  note  a  curious  rhythm  of 
contradictory  effects,  a  sort  of  inevitable  law  by  which  every  victory, 
every  access  of  power  achieved  in  the  Church  by  the  papacy,  corresponds 
to  a  defeat,  a  diminution  of  influence  in  the  State,  in  the  order  of 
thought,  and  of  the  secular  life.  The  same  year  which  saw  the  dog- 
matic apotheosis  of  the  Pope  in  Rome,  saw  also  the  disappearance  of  the 
last  vestiges  of  his  temporal  sovereignty.  A  pendulum  movement  at 
once  exalts  the  Pontiff  and  annuls  the  Prince. 

The  double  phenomenon  is  produced  by  one  and  the  same  cause.  The 
theocratic  principle,  the  principle  of  supernatural  authority,  which  made 
it  all-powerful  in  the  religious  order,  at  the  same  time  revealed  it  as  a 
perpetual  menace  to  the  independence  of  civil  powers  and  the  liberty  of 
nations.  The  schismatic  peoples,  whose  moral  and  religious  life  is  inde- 
pendent, have  felt  no  need  of  any  intimate  and  official  relations  with 
Rome.  Those  which  have  remained  Catholic  are  always  in  conflict  with 
her,  consuming  their  strength  in  controversies  as  interminable  as  sterile. 

By  the  Syllabus  of  1864,  the  papacy  declared  war  upon  freedom  of 
thought  and  modern  civilisation.  Here  stand  face  to  face  two  tend- 
encies, two  irreconcilable  principles.  The  principle  of  modern  culture 


138  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

is  the  autonomy  of  the  reason  and  the  conscience,  and  consequently  of 
peoples  and  their  governments,  as  well  as  of  philosophy,  art,  and  science. 
This  principle  asserts  itself  in  the  progressive  secularisation  of  institu- 
tions and  laws,  by  the  enfranchisement  of  the  human  mind  from  priestly 
and  so-called  supernatural  tutelage.  We  have  eliminated  the  super- 
natural from  science  and  philosophy ;  little  by  little  we  shall  eliminate  it 
from  politics  and  social  life.  But  what  is  modern  papacy  speaking  and 
commanding  in  the  name  of  God  himself,  if  not  the  supernatural  operat- 
ing before  our  eyes  on  a  single  point  upon  this  planet,  while  all  around 
it  goes  on  the  free  and  irresistible  expansion  of  all  human  aspirations  and 
potentialities  ? 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  may  not  this  variance,  or  if  you  please,  this 
antagonism  cease?  Is  a  reconciliation  impossible? 

At  this  point  a  school  presents  itself,  as  lavish  as  it  is  apt  in  fallacy, 
which  says  that  we  must  distinguish  between  the  principle  of  modern 
civilisation  and  its  errors  or  evil  fruits.  The  Church  does  not  condemn 
the  first,  but  only  the  others.  After  all,  civilisation  is  of  Christian  origin ; 
it  is  Christian  by  its  aspirations,  its  respect  for  law,  its  desire  for  equal- 
ity, its  longing  for  fraternal  solidarity.  Why  should  this  hostility  last 
forever?  Naturally  the  Church  does  not  accept  liberty  of  conscience, 
the  equality  of  all  citizens  and  all  opinions  before  the  law,  as  religious 
dogmas,  but  she  adopts  them  as  principles  of  civil  and  natural  order. 
She  herself  demands  only  the  common  right  and  seeks  to  conquer  only 
by  persuasion.  It  is  optional  to  accept  the  truth  which  she  teaches ;  all 
she  asks  is  liberty  to  preach  it. 

Would  to  Heaven  that  this  school  were  right !  But  let  us  trace  the 
consequences  of  this  theory  and  method  of  freedom.  Henceforth  the 
Catholic  Church  lays  aside  its  age-long  claim  to  dominate  the  civil  power 
and  dictate  its  laws.  Like  every  other  religious  or  philosophical  society 
she  places  herself  in  the  field  of  the  common  right  of  free  discussion  and 
competition.  She  will  content  herself  with  being  the  most  ancient  as  well 
as  the  most  considerable  of  the  Churches ;  she  will  suffer  without  a  mur- 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY  139 

mur  the  existence  of  dissident  churches  at  her  side.  She  will  gain  them 
to  herself  only  by  the  force  of  being  right.  But  what  does  all  this  sig- 
nify if  not  that  she  consents  to  make  reason  and  the  conscience  sovereign 
judges  of  religious  opinion,  and  by  that  act  yields  the  exterior  principle 
of  supernatural  authority  and  legitimacy?  What  does  it  signify,  in- 
deed, if  not  an  admission  that  the  dogma  of  Rome  is  nothing  more  than 
one  of  many  different  opinions,  equally  subject  to  the  tests  of  criticism; 
in  short,  that  she  is  nothing  other  than  one  more  sect,  or  if  that  word 
offends,  one  of  a  thousand  forms  of  historic  Christianity,  between  which 
we  are  free  to  choose? 

The  papacy  is  far  indeed  from  views  such  as  these.  For  her  to  accept 
them  would  be  to  abdicate.  Instinct  alone  must  warn  her  that  the  tend- 
ency of  all  liberal  Catholicism  at  bottom  implies  the  negation  of  the 
principle  upon  which  the  entire  Papal  system  rests.  For  this  reason  she 
permits  not  one  of  these  liberal  conceits  to  pass  without  excessive  censure. 
From  the  tentative  of  Lamennais  to  the  Americanism  of  Father  Hecker, 
the  experiment  has  had  but  one  solution.  Popes  may  change,  but  the 
attitude  of  the  papacy  remains  the  same.  To  be  surprised  at  this  is  to 
show  ignorance  of  the  conditions.  The  theocratic  idea  is  the  very  essence 
of  the  papacy. 

The  great  strength  of  this  system  of  government  lies  in  this:  that 
men  confuse  with  it  the  Church  itself,  and  identify  the  Church  with  reli- 
gion. How  many  intelligent  minds  still  imagine  that  the  downfall  of 
the  papal  system  would  carry  with  it  that  of  the  Christian  Church  and 
even  of  all  religion !  It  is  true  that  partisans  of  the  theocracy  do  all  in 
their  power  to  create  and  perpetuate  this  illusion.  But  they  are  doing 
precisely  what  the  advocates  of  royalty  did  when,  identifying  France 
with  monarchy  by  divine  right,  they  maintained  that  the  overthrow  of 
the  latter  would  be  the  destruction  of  the  former.  The  throne  of  Louis 
XIV  has  been  destroyed,  but  with  liberty  France  has  entered  upon  a  new 
course.  So  it  would  be  with  religion,  if  the  theocratic  form  which  is 
still  dominant  in  Catholic  nations  were  abolished.  Is  religion  indeed  any 


140  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

less  intense  and  efficient  among  these  peoples  which  no  longer  receive  their 
rule  of  faith  and  morals  from  Rome? 

But,  it  is  urged,  does  not  Catholicism  make  conquests  and  conversions  ? 
May  it  not  extend  itself  indefinitely  by  its  missions  among  Protestant 
peoples,  schismatic  Orientals,  and  races  still  pagan?  Why  should  not 
the  papacy  even  yet  restore  the  moral  and  religious  unity  of  the  world? 
To  discuss  partial  successes  and  far-distant  hopes  serves  no  real  end. 
The  conquests  of  Catholicism,  were  they  as  real  as  they  are  illusory,  would 
no  more  prove  her  supernatural  claims  to  be  true  than  those  of  Islamism 
in  Africa,  for  example,  would  demonstrate  the  truth  of  Mohammed's 
revelations.  The  apparent  successes  of  any  religious  form  simply  bring 
to  light  a  certain  momentary  correspondence  between  the  form  and  the 
moral  and  political  condition  of  the  social  environment  in  which  it  has 
gained  a  place.  To  the  intelligent  mind  there  is  no  common  measure 
between  the  truth  of  a  thesis  and  the  welcome  which  it  may  at  any  time 
receive.  The  truth  of  the  religious  question  is  not  a  question  of  major- 
ities. It  did  not  need  that  the  words  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  should  be 
received  with  acclamation  by  the  entire  nation  before  distressed  and 
burdened  consciences  could  receive  them  as  divine  truth.  The  dream  of 
universal  dominion  cherished  by  certain  conquerors  was  far  less  chimerical 
than  that  indulged  in  by  the  Popes  of  effecting  a  unity  of  minds  under 
an  absolute  theocratic  monarchy.  Minds  are  less  easily  bent  than  bodies. 
If,  by  impossibility,  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth  should  one  day  enter 
the  pale  of  the  Roman  Church,  without  question  they  would  bring  with 
them  their  characters,  their  temperaments,  their  tendencies ;  and  the  new 
empire  would  no  sooner  be  formed  than  its  inevitable  dismemberment 
would  at  once  begin. 

To  return  to  the  actual  present.  The  papacy  maintains  its  claims, 
but  it  cannot  change  the  conditions  of  life  which  this  reality  imposes 
upon  it. 

Having  become  a  dogma,  the  papacy  has  ceased  to  be  any  other  than 
a  metaphysical  power.  No  doubt  it  is  still  surrounded  with  a  halo  of 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY  141 

distinction,  and  its  spiritual  action  weighs  heavily  in  those  councils  where 
the  policies  of  all  governments  are  decided.  But  the  very  character  of 
the  diplomacy  to  which  the  Holy  See  must  resort  in  order  to  exercise  it 
proves  with  evidence  how  greatly  the  times  have  changed  since  Gregory 
VII  and  Innocent  III. 

Compare  the  conduct  of  these  great  Popes  and  the  relations  of  Leo 
XIII  with  the  German  Emperor,  who  stands  in  the  place  of  the  unhappy 
Henry  IV,  or  with  Queen  Victoria,  who  occupied  the  throne  of  John 
Lackland.  The  weapon  of  excommunication,  once  all-powerful,  is  now 
shattered.  The  Roman  thunderbolt  is  silenced,  and  will  never  again  call 
any  sovereign  to  Canossa. 

The  problem  of  the  papacy  becomes  every  day  more  restricted.  The 
Pope  remains  in  Rome,  and  such  is  his  position  that  he  is  no  longer  king, 
and  he  cannot  be  subject.  The  condition  strikingly  illustrates  the  nature 
of  his  authority  everywhere.  In  every  modern  nation  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  is  confronted  with  civil  and  political  laws  which  she  can 
neither  attack  nor  sincerely  accept.  She  is  inexorably  set  between  ad- 
hesion and  abdication.  Unable  to  bring  herself  to  accept  either  alterna- 
tive, she  resigns  herself  to  the  situation  under  protest. 

The  same  distress  is  hers  in  the  domain  of  thought.  The  theology 
of  authority  must  either  forbid  philosophical  discussion  or  accept  it.  In 
the  first  case  it  is  self-excluded  from  the  arena  in  which  at  the  present 
day  all  living  opinions  freely  struggle  and  make  their  way,  and  in  that 
case  it  wins  from  modern  science  only  a  disdainful  neglect.  In  the  second 
case  it  is  bound  to  own  the  universal  jurisdiction  of  the  reason,  and 
thenceforth  its  dogma,  stripped  of  all  exterior  and  supernatural  author- 
ity, is  merely  one  solution  among  many  others,  of  the  problems  now  occu- 
pying natural  science,  the  history  of  religions,  and  philosophy  in  general. 

Now,  if  the  Catholic  dogma  is  ever  put  into  the  crucible  of  scientific 
discussion,  it  will  not  come  out  just  as  it  went  in.  That  will  happen 
to  it  which  has  happened  to  all  systems,  even  the  noblest  and  best.  It 
will  come  out  transformed.  This  is  to  say,  that  it  will  descend,  that  it 


142  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

has  already  descended,  from  the  region  of  the  absolute  and  the  super- 
natural to  the  uncertain  course  of  human  ideas  and  things.  Its  sub- 
stance may  survive,  its  form  will  necessarily  be  renewed. 

Such  is  the  power  of  things;  such  is  the  law  of  history.  In  vain 
does  the  papacy  stiffen  itself  against  the  current;  it  is  the  product  of 
historic  evolution,  and  in  its  turn  must  yield  to  it.  In  vain  does  it  appeal 
to  supernatural  rights  and  promises  of  eternity.  Criticism  applies  itself 
to  the  texts  which  it  invokes,  and  discovers  their  futility  or  their  apocry- 
phal character.  As  the  succession  and  continuation  of  the  empire  of  the 
Caesars,  it  has  no  surer  warrant  than  had  that  empire  itself  against  final 
decomposition.  Not  less  did  the  Romans  of  the  Augustan  age  doubt  the 
eternity  of  their  domination  of  the  world.  They  foresaw  neither  the 
partition  of  their  empire  nor  the  formation  of  rival  nations  in  the  East, 
giving  opportunity  for  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians,  nor  did  they  dream 
of  the  new  forces,  like  Islam,  which  Asia  was  already  brooding  in  her 
mysterious  womb.  In  their  world-conquering  pride  they  applied  to 
themselves  the  oracles  of  Jupiter,  which  obliging  mythology,  reflecting 
their  political  ambition,  had  accumulated  around  the  cradle  of  their  race. 

His  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono; 
Imperium  sine  fine  dedi.     .    . 

Is  it  possible  for  a  critical  mind  to  lend  greater  faith  to  the  more 
recent  mythology  with  which  the  papacy  has  veiled  its  origin  ?  Have  its 
institution  by  Christ  and  the  chain  of  apostolical  succession  more  reality 
than  the  genealogy  by  which  the  blood  of  ^E*neas  was  traced  in  the  family 
of  the  Caesars?  Such  poetic  garlands  hung  on  the  front  of  the  engine 
which  moves  the  train  adorn  it  to  the  eyes  and  imagination,  but  they  do 
not  make  the  steam  which  from  within  sets  it  in  motion,  nor  are  they 
supposed  to  do  so.  A  few  more  revolutions  of  the  wheels  toward  the 
unknown  future,  and  the  face  of  the  world  will  be  renewed.  The  Catholic 
form  of  the  Church  had  its  history,  its  greatness,  its  efficacy,  in  the 
past.  Other  forms  are  being  secretly  prepared  which  will  unfold  in 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY  143 

their  turn,  to  respond  to  new  needs  and  render  to  future  ages  services  no 
less  necessary. 

There  are  two  factors  in  Roman  Catholicism:  a  profound  and  noble 
religion,  a  vital  sap  of  Christian  life,  a  fountain  of  mystic  uplift  and 
heroic  devotion  never  to  be  forgotten  by  those  souls  which  have  been 
renewed  and  invigorated  by  it.  By  this  piety  they  were  born  anew  into 
the  higher  ideal  life  of  duty  and  love.  But  there  is  also  an  absolute  gov- 
ernment, a  hierarchy  which  oppresses  the  conscience,  which  is  the  enemy 
of  all  free  and  spontaneous  inspiration,  fettering  the  thought  in  outworn 
dogmas  and  the  moral  life  in  puerile  exercises  of  devotion.  It  is  a  mis- 
take to  believe  that  the  vigour  of  the  first  of  these  elements  depends  upon 
the  stability  of  the  second.  That  is  a  delusion.  Let  one  analyse  his  own 
feelings  and  consult  history,  and  he  will  see  that  faith  came  before  ortho- 
doxy and  piety  before  the  priesthood;  that  the  hierarchy  depends  upon 
religion,  and  not  religion  upon  the  hierarchy. 

The  modern  world  can  neither  endure  the  one  nor  do  without  the 
other.  In  vain  are  the  two  presented  to  it  as  an  indivisible  whole,  which 
must  be  taken  or  left  in  entirety.  Time  is  the  great  critic;  it  decom- 
poses the  firmest  rocks;  it  transforms  the  most  unyielding  institutions. 
It  will  find  a  way  to  dissolve  the  Catholic  amalgam  and  set  free  all  that 
is  vital,  while  casting  away  all  that  is  only  a  survival  of  the  past. 

Likewise,  in  the  Catholic  dogma  of  authority,  it  is  proper  to  distin- 
guish between  the  principle  of  natural  and  legitimate  authority  spon- 
taneously created  in  every  society,  religious  or  other,  which  is  enduring 
and  has  a  mission  to  accomplish,  and  the  dogmatic  theory  by  which,  under 
pretext  of  strengthening  it,  authority  is  supernaturalised  and  made  abso- 
lute. Beginning  as  less  than  an  infant,  an  embryo,  every  man  comes  in 
contact  with  and  should  bless  the  society  which  nurtured,  educated,  and 
brought  him  to  manhood.  Who  would  wish  to  deny  that  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Middle  Ages  the  Catholic  Church  was  a  strong  and  admirable 
schoolmistress,  that  her  action  was  potent,  her  authority  uncontested,  so 
long  as  her  mission  was  not  accomplished?  But  let  none  forget  that  even 


144  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

in  education  it  is  the  truth  which  makes  authority,  not  the  contrary. 
The  teacher  does  not  create  the  truth ;  he  should  lead  to  it.  His  instruc- 
tion must  make  itself  understood  and  accepted  by  the  reason  and  the 
conscience  which  early  awakes  in  the  soul  of  the  child.  If  it  is  convicted 
of  falsehood,  it  loses  all  authority  in  the  eyes  of  the  most  docile  pupil. 
Which  is  to  say  that  there  is  in  man  a  sense  which  perceives  the  truth, 
and  a  norm  by  which  to  recognise  and  test  it.  In  moral  things  the  man 
breaks  away  from  the  tutelage  of  authority  and  rises  to  the  autonomy 
of  his  own  conscience.  This  is  why  all  authorities  are  relative,  and  must 
be  modified  with  time  if  they  are  to  be  maintained. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  not  thus  understood  it.  She  has 
thought  to  save  her  authority  by  investing  it  with  the  supernatural ;  she 
has  killed  it.  A  supernatural  authority  in  the  exterior  order  necessarily 
becomes  first  a  political  authority,  and  afterward  an  oppressive  authority 
It  tends  to  subordinate  truth  to  itself,  instead  of  devoting  itself  to  truth. 
It  is  no  longer  the  servant  of  the  truth ;  it  wills  to  be  its  mistress,  and 
even  believes  itself  to  have  created  the  truth.  It  demands  submission 
before  having  convinced  its  pupil.  Its  word  alone  is  truth,  not  because 
it  is  evident,  but  because  it  is  its  own.  The  same  supernatural  element 
stiffens  the  system  of  authority,  exaggerates  it,  and  forbids  its  reforma- 
tion. How  could  it  be  infallible  if  it  could  ever  need  reformation? 
Unable  to  follow  the  development  of  the  mind,  it  is  fatally  in  opposition 
to  it.  The  forms  of  authority  which  are  suited  to  humanity  in  its  in- 
fancy and  minority  are  exasperating  to  an  adult  and  enlightened  human- 
ity. Thus  revolt  becomes  inevitable.  A  conflict  breaks  out  between 
the  conscience  and  tradition,  and  its  sole  possible  issue,  in  the  religious 
order,  is  Protestantism. 


BOOK  II 
THE  PROTESTANT  DOGMA  OF  AUTHORITY 


BOOK  II 
THE  PROTESTANT  DOGMA  OF  AUTHORITY, 

CHAPTER  ONE 

PRIMITIVE    PROTESTANTISM 

I 

The  Reformation  and  Humanism 

NOTHING  is  more  frivolous  or  less  historical  than  to  consider  the  Reforma- 
tion of  the  sixteenth  century  as  an  accident  caused  by  monkish  quarrels 
or  the  political  rivalries  of  princes.  It  can  be  understood  only  on  two 
conditions:  first,  that  of  penetrating  to  its  intimate  relations  with  the 
general  evolution  of  mind  at  that  epoch,  an  evolution  which  made  pos- 
sible this  attempt  at  reformation;  and  second,  that  of  grasping  the 
religious  principle,  at  once  old  and  new,  which  made  it  an  irresistible 
force. 

Why  did  that  Reformation  of  the  Church,  which  had  been  so  often 
attempted  in  vain  by  many  pious  souls  and  heroic  workers  in  the  Middle 
Ages  finally  succeed  in  at  least  half  of  Europe  with  Luther,  Zwingli,  and 
Calvin?  It  is  to  be  explained  only  by  the  general  complicity  which  their 
enterprise  met  in  the  new  spiritual  and  moral  tendencies  of  the  time,  and 
the  mighty  response  which  their  protest  everywhere  awakened  in  the  most 
enlightened  and  religious  souls.  Why  does  the  Little  seed,  dropped  by 
the  sower  in  the  beginning  of  winter,  after  slumbering  beneath  the  snow- 
covered  and  frost-hardened  earth,  suddenly  awake  and  press  upward,  a 
vigorous  plant,  when  the  air  becomes  more  clement?  The  season  has 
changed,  the  sun  is  a  few  degrees  higher  above  the  horizon,  and  the  face 
of  the  earth  is  made  new. 

Thus  the  seasons  of  history  succeed  one  another  by  the  continued 

146 


146  THE  REFORMATION  AND  HUMANISM 

evolution  of  minds.  But  never  was  the  change  more  evident  than  on 
the  eve  of  the  Reformation,  in  that  age  justly  named  the  Renascence. 
In  those  days  the  larks  were  everywhere  singing  to  the  sky  and  hailing 
the  rising  sun.  Everywhere  activity  reigned,  ardent,  free,  joyful,  like 
that  which  on  spring  mornings  awakes  in  the  hives  of  bees  and  the  homes 
of  men.  *'  O  new  age !  "  cries  Ulrich  von  Hiitten,  "  study  is  flourishing, 
minds  are  awaking,  it  is  a  joy  to  live! " 

Yet  we  should  not  look  upon  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  period  of  darkness 
and  death.  As  its  name  well  indicates,  it  was  a  period  of  transition  be- 
tween the  old  time  and  the  new.  Nothing  was  more  necessary  nor  more 
fruitful  for  the  souls  of  the  western  nations  than  this  long,  severe  disci- 
pline. By  it  their  energy  of  thought  and  will  was  tempered.  It  is  said 
that  the  races  who  inhabit  the  fortunate  isles,  in  climes  that  have  no 
winter,  lack  also  vigour  of  character. 

Since  the  awakening  that  marked  the  Carolingian  epoch,  activity  of 
mind  and  the  love  of  study  had  been  interruptedly  growing  and  extend- 
ing. Scholasticism,  though  by  itself  sterile,  like  all  philosophy  and 
science  based  on  authority,  had  none  the  less  equipped  the  human  reason 
for  a  more  fruitful  labour.  With  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries 
it  began  to  turn  from  abstractions,  empty  of  reality,  to  observe  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature.  The  notion  of  the  universe  was  enlarging.  The 
discovery  of  America  had  stirred  imagination  and  thought  to  new  activ- 
ity. Inventions  of  every  kind,  like  that  of  printing,  radically  changed 
the  general  conditions  of  existence,  and  inspired  in  the  human  mind  the 
idea  of  endless  progress.  Finally,  the  study  of  the  literature  of  former 
times,  revived  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople  by  the  diffusion  of  ancient 
manuscripts  and  of  Greek  teachers  through  the  western  world,  gave  the 
finishing  touch  to  the  growing  distaste  for  the  old  formalism,  and 
ravished  men's  minds  with  a  new  ideal  of  learning,  a  new  sense  of  beauty. 
If  it  is  true  that  all  the  functions  of  the  soul  are  fundamentally  one,  and 
that  the  religion  of  a  people,  at  least  in  its  forms,  must  always  depend 
upon  the  degree  of  their  general  culture,  how  should  a  Church  which  so 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  HUMANISM  147 

visibly  wore  the  rust  of  the  Middle  Ages  escape  this  movement  of  uni- 
versal transformation? 

Here,  however,  we  must  beware  of  misapprehension,  nor  must  we  con- 
found the  favourable  conditions  which  made  a  religious  reformation  pos- 
sible with  the  ~ause,  or  the  force,  which  brought  it  about.  The  cause  was 
not  in  humanism.  Humanism  was  a  matter  of  aesthetic  taste  and  high 
intellectual  curiosity,  but  it  had  neither  religious  or  moral  quality,  nor 
Christian  character,  nor  had  it  any  desire  to  carry  on  a  popular  aposto- 
late  of  reformation.  Enthusiasm  for  classic  antiquity  lay  at  a  lower 
level  than  the  gospel,  and  led  directly  to  the  paganism  of  Rome  and 
Athens. 

Humanism  was  the  foe  of  scholasticism,  whose  vain  formalism  and 
absurd  pretensions  it  unmercifully  satirised ;  but  in  its  moral  apathy  and 
its  conceit  of  aristocratic  and  Epicurean  learning  it  could  accommodate 
itself  far  more  easily  to  sacerdotal  tyranny,  content  with  external  respect, 
than  to  the  storms  and  dangers  of  a  revolution.  If  we  would  know  how 
little  it  possessed  of  the  reforming  spirit  we  must  study  it  in  Italy,  where, 
from  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Popes  and  cardinals. had  been 
the  most  zealous  patrons  of  art  and  ancient  letters,  unscrupulously  asso- 
ciating the  largest  freedom  of  morals  and  the  most  easy-going  unbelief 
with  the  most  jealous  concern  for  their  own  authority  and  the  most 
rigorous  support  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  system.  Leo  X  was  Pope  of 
the  Christian  Church  very  much  as  Augustus  had  been  Supreme  Pontiff 
of  the  old  Roman  religion.  Superstition  suited  the  people,  and  elegant 
incredulity  the  intellectual  class.  Such  a  social  separation,  with  the 
hypocrisy  which  follows  in  its  train,  was  the  necessary  result  of 
humanism. 

Not  from  without,  nor  by  the  action  of  a  foreign  and  heterogeneous 
impulse,  could  the  reformation  of  the  Church  be  effected.  It  must  spring 
from  the  bosom  of  the  Church  itself.  Religion  can  indeed  be  reformed 
neither  by  artificial  grafting  nor  by  the  theoretical  processes  of  rational 
criticism.  When  it  cannot  draw  new  forms  from  its  own  fundamental 

I 


148  THE  REFORMATION  AND  HUMANISM 

principle  it  is  a  proof  that  the  root  is  withered,  and  the  tree  has  nothing 
to  do  but  die.  It  was  not  thus  with  the  Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

We  must  distinguish  between  Christianity  and  the  Church.  There 
is  certainly  room  for  surprise  that  the  state  of  corruption  into  which  the 
latter  had  fallen  had  not  resulted  in  so  enervating  the  entire  Christian 
life  as  to  leave  it  impotent.  But  the  truth  is,  that  while  the  disorders, 
vices,  and  superstitions  of  the  Church  had  extinguished  the  religious 
sentiment  in  some,  it  had  contrariwise  exalted  and  strengthened  it  in 
others.  The  moral  worthlessness  of  a  great  proportion  of  the  clergy, 
the  vanity  of  ritual  forms,  the  religious  mercantilism,  alike  failing  to 
minister  to  the  religious  need,  made  it  only  the  more  profoundly  and 
vividly  felt.  True  and  sincere  piety,  forced  to  abandon  the  exterior  in- 
stitution and  official  representatives  of  religion,  of  necessity  learned  to 
distinguish  the  inward  from  the  outward,  the  essential  from  the  acces- 
sory, the  soul  from  the  body  of  religion.  It  fell  back  upon  itself,  recov- 
ered its  grasp  of  the  inward  virtue  of  its  ideal  principle,  and  gained  a 
clearer  consciousness  of  its  transcendent  spirituality,  its  independence  of 
traditional  forms,  outward  institutions,  and  human  mediations  between 
God  and  the  conscience.  Thus  all  through  the  Middle  Ages  a  curious 
phenomenon  was  taking  place  which  we  cannot  too  carefully  study;  as 
the  Church  morally  declined,  papacy,  priests,  and  monks  more  openly 
scandalising  the  people  by  their  morals,  their  politics,  and  their  frankly 
pagan  life,  in  the  same  degree  the  Christian  spirit  grew  inwardly 
stronger,  mystic  piety  unfolded  in  the  shade  to  such  a  degree  that  per- 
haps never  did  either  appear  to  be  richer  in  vital  sap,  more  spiritually 
free  and  detached  from  the  official  organism,  than  in  the  period  which 
preceded  the  Reformation. 

The  contrast,  growing  daily  more  flagrant,  must  of  necessity  at  last 
become  active  opposition.  The  disquietude  of  Christendom  grew  greater 
day  by  day.  Religious  need,  unsatisfied  in  the  traditional  order,  cried 
out  for  a  new  order  of  things.  The  plaint  of  pious  souls  became  uni- 
versal. From  all  sides  arose  a  demand  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  HUMANISM  149 

in  head  and  members,  and  when  all  hopes  proved  vain,  when  Popes,  coun- 
cils, clergy,  princes,  showed  themselves  incapable  of  keeping  their  prom- 
ises and  even  hostile  to  the  universal  desire,  a  revolution  was  inevitable. 

Inflammable  matter  was  everywhere,  scattered  or  concentrated,  in  the 
convents,  the  country  parishes,  the  universities,  in  the  closets  of  the 
learned,  the  courts  of  kings,  the  castles  of  the  nobles,  the  corporations 
of  burghers  and  of  artisans.  It  needed  only  that  a  few  strong  individ- 
ualities, concentrating  in  themselves  the  spirit  and  needs  of  the  time, 
should  arise  and  lift  up  their  voices,  and  instantly,  from  north  to  south, 
a  thousand  incendiary  centres  would  burst  into  flame,  and  the  long  sup- 
pressed fire  would  overrun  every  province  and  enwrap  all  society  in  its 
blaze.  There  is  no  other  way  to  explain  the  sudden  and  prodigious  influ- 
ence of  Luther  in  Germany,  of  Zwingli  in  Switzerland,  of  Farel  and 
Calvin  in  the  lands  of  the  French  tongue.  By  the  response  which  their 
voices  awakened  we  may  judge  of  the  impatience  with  which  they  had 
been  awaited. 

The  success  of  the  Reformation  is  explained  by  the  intimate  harmony 
between  the  general  tendency  of  the  time  and  the  strong  religious  indi- 
vidualities who  then  came  to  the  front.  Without  the  almost  universal 
co-operation  of  the  people  the  sixteenth-century  Reformation  would  have 
been  as  impotent  as  those  which  preceded  it;  but  without  their  indi- 
vidual religious  inspiration,  their  strength  of  soul,  their  genius  for 
apostleship,  the  general  tendency  of  the  time  would  have  remained  sterile. 

It  is  a  law  of  the  moral  and  religious  life  that  no  progress,  no  renewal, 
can  take  place  except  by  means  of  great  individualities  in  whom  the  new 
ideal  is  incarnated  and  made  visible.  Prophets  and  apostles  are  necessary 
to  God  in  his  work.  To  raise  them  up  at  the  propitious  hour  is  his  secret. 
"  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  voice  thereof, 
but  knowest  not  whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth."  Luther  belongs 
to  the  family  of  religious  initiators,  of  men  greatly  inspired.  He  has 
the  inspiration  and  eloquence  of  the  prophets  of  Israel.  The  work  which 
the  prophets  accomplished  in  developing  a  moral  religion  and  universal 


150     ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION  PRINCIPLE 

monotheism  from  the  monolatry  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  entered  upon  a 
new  stage  when  Luther  and  his  fellow- reformers  caused  the  religion  of 
the  Spirit  and  of  liberty  to  burst  into  bloom  from  the  stock  of  Catholic 
legalism  and  formality. 

We  might  carry  the  parallel  farther,  but  we  have  said  enough  to 
enable  the  reader  to  perceive  the  distance  that  separates  the  humanist 
from  the  reformer — Erasmus  from  Luther.  The  criticism  of  Erasmus 
is  penetrating;  his  scorn  of  abuses,  disorders,  ignorance,  cuts  deep,  but 
from  the  religious  point  of  view  his  entire  action  is  sterile,  because  it  is 
purely  negative,  and  the  humanist  always  ends  by  resigning  himself  and 
accommodating  himself  to  that  which  he  can  indeed  ridicule,  but  which 
he  neither  knows  how  to  destroy  or  to  modify.  The  reformer,  on  the 
contrary,  uproots  and  replants ;  he  ploughs  and  sows ;  words  of  life  fall 
from  his  lips;  a  creative  breath  not  his  own  breathes  from  his  breast, 
makes  souls  to  live,  and  brings  into  being  a  new  world.  "  Erasmus," 
said  Luther,  "  did  that  to  which  he  was  called :  he  introduced  the  ancient 
languages,  he  awakened  a  distaste  for  unwholesome  studies.  But  once 
again,  with  Moses,  the  leader  dies  in  the  plains  of  Moab.  His  merit  was 
assuredly  great ;  he  pointed  out  and  arraigned  evil ;  but  to  make  manifest 
the  good  and  lead  his  people  into  the  promised  land,  this  was  beyond 
his  power."  1 

II 

Originality  of  the  Reformation  Prmciple 

IT  is  no  question  of  theory  which  underlies  the  Reformation,  but  a 
moral  and  thoroughly  practical  question;  the  ardent  desire  for  inward 
righteousness  and  peace  with  God.  We  know  the  moral  agonies  of 
Luther  in  the  monastery  at  Erfurt ;  he  asked  for  only  one  thing ;  pardon 
of  sin  and  peace  of  conscience. 

The  question  was  resolved  for  him,  as  for  Saul  of  Tarsus,  by  the 
1 "  Letter  of  Luther  to  CEcolampadius,"  1523. 


ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION  PRINCIPLE     151 

pure  and  simple  gospel,  by  the  promise  of  a  free  pardon  given  by  Christ 
to  repentance  and  faith;  that  is,  to  the  confidence  of  the  child  in  the 
Heavenly  Father's  love.  On  this  side,  the  principle  of  the  Reformation 
is  by  no  means  original  or  new.  It  is  the  primitive  creating  principle 
of  Christianity  itself. 

How,  then,  did  this  principle  become  a  new  and  even  a  revolutionary 
principle  ? 

In  Catholicism  it  had  been  singularly  allied  with  surviving  elements 
both  of  antique  paganism  and  of  Judaism.  Yet  more,  it  had  identified 
itself  with  the  very  body  of  the  Church  in  which  it  had  first  been  realised. 

This  identification  of  the  idea  and  the  external  fact  is  the  essential 
characteristic  of  Catholicism.  Thus  the  ideal  principle  of  the  religion 
of  the  Spirit  was  enchained  and  imprisoned  in  the  forms,  the  rites,  the 
hierarchical  organisation  of  the  Church,  of  which  it  was  the  inward  life 
and  efficacy.  Christian  faith  had  been  transformed  into  obedient  ad- 
herence to  the  visible  Church,  and  participation  in  divine  grace  into  par- 
ticipation in  the  sacraments.  The  priest  had  become  the  necessary 
mediator,  his  absolution  had  taken  the  place  of  the  absolution  of  God, 
as  the  decisions  of  the  Pope  had  been  substituted  for  the  inspiration  of 
Christ.  But  Luther  had  learned  by  experience  that  this  external  insti- 
tution of  salvation,  far  from  giving  peace  to  the  burdened  and  troubled 
heart,  left  it  the  more  empty  and  despairing.  He  had  found  salvation 
in  ignoring  the  institution  and  entering  into  personal,  direct,  and  imme- 
diate relations  with  the  Master  of  souls  and  the  Author  of  life  and  grace. 
Was  not  this  already  the  implicit  condemnation  of  the  whole  system  of 
human  absolution,  sanctimonious  practices,  and  hierarchical  pretensions  ? 

In  other  quarters  the  deep  discredit,  the  violent  disdain  with  which 
churchmen  and  the  institution  itself  had  come  to  be  regarded,  constrained 
serious  souls  to  seek  peace  and  life  outside  of  official  systems  and  estab- 
lished traditions.  It  had  become  necessary  to  learn,  willingly  or  unwill- 
ingly, how  to  distinguish  the  body  from  the  soul  of  religion,  the  accessory 
from  the  essential.  From  that  moment  the  Christian  spirit  began  to 


152    ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION  PRINCIPLE 

free  itself  from  the  bonds  with  which  so-called  divine  jurisprudence  had 
fettered  it ;  to  escape  from  prison  and  regain  its  independence. 

The  ideal  principle  of  Christianity  was  rediscovering  its  ideality, 
asserting  itself  with  a  new  consciousness  of  its  divine  transcendence;  it 
was  purifying  itself  from  the  foreign  elements  which  still  oppressed  it, 
manifesting  itself  in  its  moral  absolutism,  its  spiritual  purity,  as  an 
entirely  new  life-principle  which  might  well  create  new  theologies,  forms, 
religious  societies,  without  being  exhausted  or  absorbed  by  any  one  of 
them.  After  such  a  triumph  over  the  past,  the  strictly  religious  and 
moral  principle  of  Protestantism  appeared  to  be  actually  susceptible  of 
indefinite  development.  Here  again  we  have  nothing  essentially  new; 
that  which  was  new  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  the  consciousness  which 
Christendom  then  gained  of  the  vital  principle  of  Christianity,  of  its 
purely  moral  essence,  and  its  absolute  independence  of  all  historic  delimi- 
tations and  realisations  through  which  it  had  passed  and  might  pass  yet 
again ;  it  was  the  incorporation  of  the  Christian  principle  in  the  moral 
and  religious  consciousness  of  humanity. 

In  the  Catholic  system,  Christianity  had  been  so  externalised  as  to 
become  a  law  or  rite,  a  body  politic.  In  Protestantism  it  was  mteriorised 
in  the  soul  itself,  and  became  once  more  an  immanent  moral  force,  the 
very  spirit  of  holiness,  love,  and  life.  In  the  first  case  it  engendered 
servitude,  in  the  second  it  brought  forth  liberty. 

Luther  neither  foresaw  nor  desired  all  the  consequences  of  the  prin- 
ciple which  he  introduced  into  the  world.  Trained  in  Middle-Age  scho- 
lasticism, he  was  never  entirely  set  free  from  it.  To  the  daring  intuitions 
of  the  prophet  the  man  of  tradition  brought  many  a  fear  and  many  a 
repentance.  For  that  matter,  no  principle  in  the  practical  moral  order, 
whose  consequences  must  be  developed  by  lif  e,  not  logic,  can  be  revealed  in 
all  its  significance  at  the  very  first.  When  he  entered  upon  his  preaching 
work  Christ  did  not  attack  the  Mosaic  institutions  nor  change  the  reli- 
gious habits  of  his  disciples.  He  dropped  the  living  seed  into  the  earth 
and  left  to  time  the  duty  of  making  it  germinate  and  ripen.  It  is  none  the 


ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION  PRINCIPLE     153 

less  true  that  in  bringing  religion  back  to  inward  faith,  and  theology 
to  Christian  experience,  Luther  did  justify  the  permanent  criticism  of 
ceremonial  and  dogma,  and  for  all  time  shattered  the  system  of  authority, 
at  least  in  religion. 

If  he  had  completely  succeeded  in  his  work,  Christendom  in  its  entirety 
would  have  been  set  in  a  new  path,  and  how  different  would  have  been  the 
history  of  Europe !  But  revolutions  are  never  effected  without  conflicts 
and  ruptures.  The  Church  became  divided  in  itself.  Instead  of  one 
Church  there  are  two,  which,  living  in  perpetual  conflict,  have  developed 
two  forms  of  Christianity,  two  historic  Christendoms,  which  without 
ceasing  to  be  related  have  become  none  the  less  mutually  irreconcilable. 

Though  in  perpetual  conflict,  the  two  societies  have  none  the  less 
mutually  interacted.  The  action  has  indeed  been  twofold.  In  the  first 
place,  Catholicism  opened  itself  to  the  Protestant  spirit,  and  the  Catholic 
spirit  reappeared  in  Protestantism.  In  the  next,  the  two  principles, 
by  the  unceasing  violence  of  their  impact,  arrived  each  at  its  final  logical 
expression ;  the  principle  of  authority  at  infallibility  concentrated  in  the 
person  of  the  Pope:  the  Protestant  principle  at  the  autonomy  of  the 
Christian  conscience. 

It  was  impossible  that  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  should  con- 
tinue to  be  after  the  Reformation  that  which  she  had  been  before.  The 
crisis  was  salutary  for  her,  revealing  her  latent  energies.  Those  abuses 
and  disorders  which  till  then  she  had  been  unable  to  correct  have  in 
part  been  done  away.  The  Council  of  Trent  revived  her  discipline  and 
reduced  to  something  like  order  the  chaos  of  her  doctrines,  traditions, 
and  customs.  Thence  came  the  Catholic  revival  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  two  most  noble  forms  which  Catholicism  has  ever  known,  the 
Jansenism  of  Port  Royal  and  the  Gallicanism  of  Bossuet,  were  in  reality 
semi-Protestantism.  For  that  reason,  notwithstanding  ardent  contro- 
versies, it  seemed  for  a  moment  to  the  greatest  spirits  of  the  time  that  a 
reconciliation  and  even  a  union  of  the  two  confessions  might  be  possible. 
But  the  old  principle  could  not  abdicate.  The  Jesuits  took  it  up  and 


154     ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION  PRINCIPLE 
developed  it  with  a  logic  till  then  unknown.     Jansenism  and  Gallicanism 
were  eliminated,  and  are  to-day  mere  heresies. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Catholic  spirit  survived  in  the  Protestant 
churches.  Not  only  was  the  dogmatic  tradition  of  the  councils  and  the 
Middle  Ages  maintained,  but  no  one  entertained  a  doubt  that  an  infallible 
external  authority  was  necessary.  The  attempt  was  made  to  constitute 
it  by  the  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures,  and  upon  this 
foundation  to  build  up  an  authoritative  theology.  Thus,  immediately 
after  the  death  of  the  Reformers,  supervened  that  singular  period  which 
has  been  justly  named  the  Protestant  Scholasticism.  It  was  Catholicism 
transposed.  Nothing  less  than  the  rise  of  criticism,  the  ardour  of 
pietism,  and  the  triumph  of  rational  methods,  could  avail  to  put  an  end 
to  this  period  and  bring  Protestantism  back  into  the  current  of  its  natural 
evolution. 

The  Reformation  forever  disorganised  the  old  system  of  authority. 
That  system  rested  upon  two  pillars :  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  tradition ; 
the  clash  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  polemics  destroyed  them  both.  In 
the  name  of  Scripture  the  Protestants  overthrew  the  authority  of  tradi- 
tion ;  in  the  name  of  tradition  the  Catholics  well-nigh  annulled  the  Scrip- 
tures. Without  tradition  the  Scriptures  are  without  external  support, 
and  cannot  become  a  dogma ;  they  remain  simply  historic  documents  sub- 
ject  to  the  appreciation  and  interpretation  of  the  individual  reason. 

The  Protestant  dogma  of  authority  never  had,  nor  could  have,  the 
simplicity,  the  plenitude,  the  efficacy  of  the  Catholic  dogma.  For 
Protestantism  to  undertake  to  constitute  such  a  dogma  is  a  pure  incon- 
sistency. The  Protestant  churches  do  not  believe  themselves  infallible; 
how,  then,  can  they  constitute  an  infallible  canon  of  sacred  books,  or  bor- 
row such  a  canon  without  the  slightest  criticism  from  the  tradition  of 
another  church,  a  thousand  times  convicted  of  error?  A  basis  for  doc- 
trinal government  can  be  drawn  from  the  Bible  only  by  drawing  from  it 
a  confession  of  faith.  ShalMhis  confession  of  faith  infallibly  rule  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible?  We  are  then  in  very  Catholicism.  Or 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  REFORMERS  165 

shall  the  Christian  remain  free  to  appeal  from  the  Confession  of  Faith 
to  the  Scriptures?  Then  the  latter  is  subject  to  the  individual  reason; 
it  is  the  prime  source  of  Christian  knowledge,  an  incomparable  means  of 
edification,  but  it  is  no  longer  an  infallible  and  tyrannical  authority. 
On  the  contrary,  it  has  become  the  bulwark  of  Christian  liberty. 

The  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures  was  therefore  by 
no  means  primitive  in  Protestantism.  The  Reformation  knew  nothing 
of  it  in  the  early  days.  We  shall  explain  its  genesis  and  relate  its  his- 
tory. But  first  it  behoves  us  to  ascertain  what  was  the  attitude  of  the 
Reformers  toward  the  traditional  Bible. 

in 

The  Bible  and  the  Reformers 

THE  Reformers  did  not  begin  by  forming  a  theory  of  the  Bible  and  its 
authority,  thence  afterward  to  deduce  their  particular  doctrines.  Not 
only  did  they  have  no  need  to  do  so,  since  the  authority  of  the  Bible  was 
strongly  established  and  recognised  by  the  ancient  Church  before  their 
day,  but  furthermore,  as  we  have  seen,  their  initial  method  was  anything 
but  scholastic.  They  proceeded,  not  by  the  way  of  external  authority, 
but  by  way  of  inward  experience.  Theology  had  become  a  system  of 
jurisprudence;  they  brought  it  back  into  the  moral  sphere. 

Nor  did  they  discuss  with  their  opponents,  at  least  in  the  beginning, 
the  question  what  authority  may  lawfully  promulgate  dogmas.  For 
them  the  question  was,  What  is  the  true,  authentic  Christianity,  that 
which  gives  peace,  regenerates,  and  saves?  Was  the  Christianity  of  the 
church  that  of  Christ  and  his  apostles?  To  resolve  this  question  the 
Reformers  resorted  to  the  original  texts  of  the  biblical  books,  just  as  the 
humanists  were  setting  themselves  to  research  and  the  study  of  the  ancient 
works  in  order  to  discover  the  true  classic  antiquity  and  give  a  clear  and 
vivid  impression  of  it.  The  Reformers  retraced  the  turbid  course  of  the 
Christian  stream  to  its  source,  and  there  quenched  their  thirst  for  right- 


156  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  REFORMERS 

eousness  and  peace.  The  new  life  they  there  drank  in,  filling  them  with 
joy  and  strength,  was  their  sufficient  and  ultimate  warrant  that  the 
waters  of  this  spring  had  their  source  in  heaven.  Their  flavour  demon- 
strated their  origin  with  the  direct  and  compelling  light  of  a  truth  that 
offers  itself  to  the  soul  ready  to  receive  it.  This  principle  of  moral  and 
religious  evidence,  of  full  inward  persuasion,  took  that  part  in  the  refor- 
mation of  the  Church  which  intellectual  evidence  took  in  the  Cartesian 
reform  of  ancient  philosophy.  In  both  cases  it  was  the  method  of  inward 
conviction  putting  an  end  to  the  systems  and  method  of  antiquity.  Thus 
we  see  Luther  and  Calvin,  with  ingenuous  and  confident  boldness  such 
as  their  disciples  no  longer  possess,  overturning  the  ancient  pyramid, 
and  in  the  last  analysis  making  their  new  theory  of  the  authority  of  the 
Bible  rest  upon  the  original  creative  fact  of  conscience,  upon  the  inward 
witness  of  the  Spirit,  and  not  the  contrary. 

That  the  position  and  attitude  of  the  Reformers  with  regard  to  the 
Bible  have  often  been  deemed  uncertain,  obscure,  or  even  inconsistent,  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  easy  to  glean  from  their  writings  two  series 
of  apparently  irreconcilable  statements.  Reading  one  series  it  would 
be  easy  to  conclude  that,  to  speak  their  language,  they  identified  "  the 
Word  of  God  "  with  the  text,  the  canon,  and  even  the  letter  of  the  biblical 
books,  and  maintained  the  system  of  a  literal  inspiration  and  a  scriptural 
canon  come  down  from  heaven  to  earth  all  complete.  So  to  conclude 
would  be  a  great  mistake.  The  more  one  supposes  this  to  be  the  case 
the  more  must  he  be  surprised  and  disconcerted  by  the  daring  criticism 
which  at  other  times  the  Reformers  initiated  and  practiced,  whether  with 
regard  to  the  value  and  authority  of  certain  books  or  to  the  formation 
of  the  canon  itself.  It  would  have  been  a  most  flagrant  inconsistency 
on  their  part  to  base  the  authority  of  the  Word  of  God  upon  the  decisions 
of  a  Church  whose  tradition  they  almost  wholly  repudiated  as  a  tissue  of 
legends,  superstitions,  and  human  inventions.  Into  this  inconsistency 
they  did  not  fall. 

Everything  becomes  in  fact  clear  by  two  considerations.     The  first 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  REFORMERS  157 

is  that  their  faith,  being  of  the  purely  moral  and  religious  order,  clung 
before  all  things  to  the  moral  and  religious  substance  of  the  Bible,  and 
not  to  its  letter  and  outward  form,  which  are  matters  not  of  faith,  but 
of  history.  As  their  chief  purpose,  one  which  absorbed  all  their  thought 
and  all  their  solicitude,  was  to  lead  souls  to  the  very  fountain-head  of 
Christianity,  they  find  no  expressions  vigorous  enough  to  exalt  the 
heavenly  quality  of  its  waters,  and  do  not  concern  themselves  beyond 
measure  with  the  earthly  basin  out  of  whic1-  they  flow.  Their  long 
desire  is  to  save  men,  to  set  the  troubled  conscience  free,  not  to  resolve 
obscure  problems  of  literary  origin,  questions  of  authorship  and  date; 
nor  do  they  otherwise  greatly  concern  themselves  with  nice  distinctions 
between  the  content  and  that  which  contains  it,  between  the  spirit  and 
the  letter.  In  their  preachings  and  polemics  at  least,  the  human  imper- 
fections of  the  Bible  disappear  in  the  radiant  glory  of  its  divine  truth. 

But  this  point  being  proved,  another  appears.  First  of  all,  let  us 
look  upon  the  Reformers  with  those  Middle-Age  Bibles  which  they  read 
and  studied.  These  traditional  collections  contained  much  more  than 
the  apostolic  books.  They  included  apochryphas,  pseudepigraphs,  eccle- 
siastical writings  of  widely  differing  values.  The  distinction  between 
the  proto-canonical  and  the  deutero-canonical  books  was  not  yet  wholly 
forgotten.  It  must  be  remembered  that  before  the  Council  of  Trent  no 
Ecumenical  Council  had  traced,  with  any  degree  of  clearness,  the  boun- 
dary line  between  that  which  was  of  divine  inspiration  and  that  which 
was  not.  How  could  the  Reformers  abstain  from  making  some  exam- 
ination of  these  traditional  collections  ?  The  truth  is  that  criticism  must 
have  come  into  being,  and  did  in  fact  come  into  being,  simultaneously  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures. 

Once  again,  that  which  was  divine  in  these  books  was  "  the  Word 
of  God,"  speaking  from  them  to  the  conscience ;  but  the  idea  would  have 
occurred  to  no  one  that  this  Word  of  God  was  absolutely  identical  with 
the  biblical  collection  which  he  might  have  in  hand.  This  is  evident  from 
the  manner  in  which  Luther  and  Melancthon  explain  and  determine  the 


168  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  REFORMERS 

content  of  this  divine  Word.  It  is  made  up  of  two  parts :  the  Law,  which 
reveals  to  man  the  gravity  of  his  estate  of  sin,  by  showing  him  what 
divine  justice  requires  of  him,  and  the  gospel,  that  is,  the  promise  of 
pardon  of  sin  and  the  outpouring  of  the  spirit  of  life.  Excellent  as 
containing  the  moral  and  religious  substance  of  the  Scripture,  this  divi- 
sion is  absolutely  inapplicable  to  the  books  themselves. 

It  is  still  more  important  to  note  the  new  criterion  which,  at  the  very 
outset,  Luther  with  frank  boldness  set  up  for  the  criticism  of  the  biblical 
books,  and  whence  he  at  once  deduces  a  judgment  regarding  them.  His 
translation  of  the  Bible  is  well  known :  it  contains  prefaces  in  which  with 
perfect  clearness  he  lays  down  the  decisive  rule  which  each  reader,  learned 
or  ignorant,  should  and  can  follow  as  he  seeks  to  find  in  this  very  mingled 
collection  his  true  soul-nurture,  the  living,  substantial  "  Word  of  God." 
After  having  formulated  it  he  immediately  gives  examples  of  its  prac- 
tical application  to  several  of  the  most  venerated  books.  Let  us  listen 
a  moment  and  learn  how  he  does  it: 

"  Christ  is  the  Master,  the  Scriptures  are  the  servant.  Here  is  the 
true  touchstone  for  testing  all  the  books :  we  must  see  whether  they  work 
the  works  of  Christ  or  not.  The  book  which  does  not  teach  Christ  is 
not  apostolic,  were  St.  Peter  or  St.  Paul  its  writer.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  book  which  preaches  Christ  is  apostolic,  were  its  author  Judas, 
Annas,  Pilate,  or  Herod.  .  .  John  accords  little  space  to  the  acts 
of  Christ,  much  to  his  words.  The  other  Gospels  say  much  of  his  acts, 
less  of  his  teaching.  This  is  why  the  former  is  the  chief  Gospel,  unique, 
most  precious,  the  one  to  be  preferred  above  all  the  others.  In  fact, 
the  Gospel  of  John  and  his  First  Epistle,  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  particu- 
larly those  to  the  Romans,  the  Galatians,  and  the  Ephesians,  and  the 
First  Epistle  of  Peter,  these  are  the  books  which  show  thee  Christ  and 
teach  thee  all  that  it  is  good  and  necessary  for  thee  to  know,  though  thou 
shouldst  never  hear  nor  see  any  other  books.  As  for  the  others,  the 
Epistle  of  James  is  a  veritable  epistle  of  straw,  for  there  is  nothing 
evangelical  in  it." 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  REFORMERS  159 

We  may  read  also  what  the  Reformer  wrote  of  the  Revelation  of 
John,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  several  of  the  Old  Testament 
books,  especially  the  prophets.  "  Without  any  doubt,"  he  says,  "  the 
prophets  had  studied  the  books  of  Moses,  and  the  late  ones  those  of  their 
predecessors,  and  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God  they  committed  their  good 
thoughts  to  writing.  But  this  is  not  to  say  that  these  doctors,  scrutinis- 
ing the  Scriptures,  did  not  sometimes  find  wood,  hay,  and  stubble,  and 
not  always  gold,  silver,  or  diamonds.  Nevertheless  the  essential  abides 
and  the  fire  consumes  the  rest." 

Evidently  Luther  was  thus  led  to  open  to  discussion  the  extent  and 
the  limits  of  the  biblical  canon.  The  Lutheran  Church  has  never  offi- 
cially settled  the  question;  but  he  himself  did  not  hesitate  to  introduce 
into  his  translation  of  the  Bible,  at  least  of  the  New  Testament,  a  very 
marked  division  between  books  of  the  first  degree  and  those  of  the  second. 
Where  the  Reformed  Confessions  of  Faith  enumerate  the  canonical 
books  according  to  traditional  usage,  they  are  careful  to  add,  without 
exception,  that  these  books  are  held  and  recognised  as  inspired  by  God 
and  the  norm  of  the  faith,  "  not  so  much  because  of  the  unanimous  consent 
of  the  Church,  as  in  virtue  of  the  inward  witness  and  persuasion  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  by  whom  we  are  made  wise  to  discover  and  set  apart  these 
from  other  ecclesiastical  books." 

Even  this  test  did  not  hinder  Calvin  from  doubting  the  authenticity 
of  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  and  expressing  himself  with  a  freedom 
not  again  for  a  long  time  practised,  with  regard  to  the  discrepancies  in 
the  Gospel  narratives,  and  the  doubtful  character  of  the  Revelation  of 
St.  John,  upon  which  he  never  commented. 

It  is  of  small  importance  that  as  Luther  grew  old  he  tempered  his 
early  rrarmth,  or  that  criticism  has  not  confirmed  his  especial  conclu- 
sions. In  many  respects  the  Reformers  were  men  of  transition,  often 
dominated  by  ideas  of  the  past,  and  held  by  bonds  which  they  could  only 

'Luther's  "Works,"  Erlangen  edition,  vol.  bdi.  p.  1*8-133;  Ixiii.  p.  157-379.    Of. 
xlvii.,  357. 


160      THE  INWARD  WITNESS  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

gradually  break.  The  question  is  not  to  justify  their  inconsistencies, 
nor  to  swear  by  their  words ;  it  is  to  get  a  clear  view  of  the  new  principle 
which  they  introduced  into  the  world,  and  which,  having  destroyed  the 
Catholic  system  of  authority,  forbade  the  future  constitution  of  any 
other  infallible  external  authority,  and  consequently  of  any  other 
tyranny.  Their  title  to  fame  is  that  they  established  a  new  conception 
of  religion  by  removing  the  seat  of  religious  authority  from  without 
to  within,  from  the  Church  to  the  Christian  consciousness.  And  this 
great  revolution  they  accomplished  with  entire  knowledge  of  what  they 
were  doing,  and  with  an  astounding  logical  firmness.  We  shall  be  con- 
vinced of  this  as  we  examine  more  nearly  the  foundation  on  which,  with 
a  new  theory  of  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  they  dared  to  base  the  certi- 
tude of  their  faith. 


IV 

The  Inward  Witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  or,  The  Subjective  Basis  of 

Protestantism 

LET  us  first  develop  the  consequences  of  the  facts  which  have  just  been 
stated. 

The  first  is  that  the  Reformers  were  very  far  from  that  Protestant 
dogma  of  the  exterior  and  absolute  authority  of  the  Bible  which  the 
succeeding  age  elaborated  to  rob  the  Christian  conscience  of  that  liberty 
which  this  age  had  so  dearly  bought.  The  distance,  not  to  say  the  oppo- 
sition, between  the  two  conceptions  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  is  so  great 
that  in  fact  it  is  a  problem  how  the  two  can  be  related,  or  how  one  could 
have  proceeded  from  the  other.  The  solution  of  this  problem  will  be  the 
subject  of  the  present  chapter. 

The  Reformers,  and  Luther  in  particular,  dreamed  of  anything 
rather  than  of  raising  up  an  exterior  authority,  infallible  like  that  of  the 
Church,  and  functioning  in  the  same  manner.  It  never  occurred  to  them 
to  consider  the  Bible  as  a  Codex  of  absolute  and  divine  prescriptions,  to 


THE  INWARD  WITNESS  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      161 

be  accepted  independently  of  their  possible  relation  to  the  Christian  con- 
science. The  Catholic  agrees  in  advance  to  accept  all  that  the  Church 
teaches  or  may  teach,  whether  or  not  it  is  in  conformity  with  his  moral 
or  religious  convictions.  There  have  been,  perhaps  there  still  are,  Prot- 
estants who  take  this  attitude  with  regard  to  the  Bible,  and  so  far,  in 
method  at  least,  they  are  still  Catholics. 

But  Luther  was  very  far  from  this  passive  attitude  and  pure  faith 
in  authority.  He  did  not  accord  an  equal  and  absolute  value  to  all  the 
books  of  the  Bible.  Side  by  side  with  the  gold,  silver,  and  precious 
stones  he  freely  pointed  out  the  hay  and  stubble  with  which  they  were 
sometimes  mingled.  From  his  commerce  with  the  Scriptures,  as  the 
effect  of  a  direct  personal  experience,  a  Christian  consciousness  had  been 
formed  within  him,  the  sentiment  of  the  inward  possession  of  that  which 
constitutes  the  pure  and  essential  truth  of  Christianity.  Thence  came 
a  personal  certainty  of  faith,  as  far  above  the  letter  of  Scripture  and 
the  canonical  authority  of  this  or  that  book  as  above  the  traditions  of 
the  Roman  Church  and  the  bulls  and  decrees  of  the  papacy.  This  Chris- 
tian consciouness,  absolutely  sure  of  itself,  could  not  be  subject  to  any 
external  tribunal.  On  the  contrary,  it  sat  in  judgment  upon  all  which 
might  claim  to  condemn  or  enslave  it,  including  the  Epistle  of  St.  James, 
the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  and  the  ritual  laws  of  the  Old  Testament. 
In  a  word,  Luther  had  gained  from  Scripture  itself  the  experience  of 
the  religion  of  grace  and  justification  by  faith,  and  faith  had  become 
in  him  so  alive,  so  sure  of  itself,  and,  so  to  speak,  so  evident  to  his  con- 
sciousness, as  to  be  free  with  regard  to  this  very  Scripture,  and  open  to 
accord  neither  credit  nor  value  to  any  biblical  testimony  which  seemed 
to  oppose  it,  or  bring  it  back  to  a  religion  of  law  and  of  the  merit  of 
works  before  God. 

To  reduce  all  this  to  a  more  simple  expression :  The  Christian  religion 
is  not  true  because  it  is  in  the  Bible,  but  it  is  in  the  Bible  because  it  is 
true.  Truth  reveals  itself  immediately  to  the  consciousness,  which,  to 
appropriate  it,  may  indeed  have  need  of  the  Scriptures  as  of  other 


162      THE  INWARD  WITNESS  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

teachers,  but  which  in  the  end  retains  and  is  nourished  by  it  only  because 
it  is  the  truth,  and  the  conscience  recognises  it  intrinsically  as  such. 

What,  then,  is  Scripture,  and  what  honour  belongs  to  it?  In  truth 
a  very  great  honour.  It  is  not  the  mistress  of  true  Christianity,  but  it 
is  its  servant.  The  servant  need  not  be  perfect;  it  suffices  that  she  be 
faithful.  Scripture  is  the  fixation  on  paper  of  the  evident  Christian 
tradition ;  but  because  it  is  the  earliest  it  is  also  the  surest,  and  as  the 
document  most  worthy  of  faith  of  all  that  we  possess,  forever  commands 
the  respect  of  all  those  who,  like  the  Reformers,  desire  to  go  to  the 
fountain-head  and  learn  the  authentic  gospel  from  Christ  and  his 
apostles. 

Yet  this  earliest  tradition,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  not  more  secure  than 
others  from  error,  forgetfulness,  imperfections,  and  additions.  If  it 
contains  gold  and  silver,  said  Luther,  it  also  has  its  hay  and  stubble. 
This  is  why  it  is  ever  subject  to  the  criticism  both  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness and  of  science.  Far  from  excluding  necessary  criticism,  the 
original  principle  of  Protestantism  requires  and  inaugurates  it. 

Examine  now  Luther's  canon  of  Scripture.  You  will  see  that  the 
distinction  which  he  makes  between  the  books  traditionally  received  and 
the  hierarchic  dignity  in  which  he  classes  them  depends  upon  the  essen- 
tially subjective  criticism  of  his  faith.  The  certitude  of  his  faith  does 
not  rest  upon  a  previous  theory  of  the  infallibility  of  Scripture;  it  is 
his  theory  of  Scripture  which  rests  upon  the  inward  certitude  of  his 
faith.  This  is  not  the  attenuation  or  transposition  of  Catholicism,  it  is 
its  reversal  and  overthrow. 

We  have  less  need  to  explain  Calvin.  Called  to  make  out  of  whole 
cloth  a  system  of  doctrines  and  a  new  church  organisation,  his  rigorously 
logical  mind  tends  by  a  powerful  effort  to  establish  a  firm  rule,  an 
authority  before  which  all  must  bow.  He  finds  this  authority  in  the 
Scriptures.  But  he  is  too  logical  and  too  perspicacious  not  to  per- 
ceive and  admit  the  underlying  foundation  on  which  he  builds  his 
theory.  Search  out  this  foundation.  Miracles  are  there,  prophecy, 


THE  INWARD  WITNESS  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      163 

divine  inspiration.  But  these  external  proofs,  including  the  attestation 
of  the  Fathers,  are  powerless  and  vain  if  they  are  not  preceded  by  the 
inward  attestation  of  the  Spirit,  the  personal  conviction  born  of  the 
immediate  contact  of  the  soul  with  truth.  Here  again  the  truth  makes 
itself  directly  recognised  as  such  by  its  intrinsic  character,  as  things  black 
and  white  reveal  their  colour  to  the  eyes,  and  things  sweet  and  bitter 
reveal  their  flavour.  This  is  what  Calvin  calls  the  inward  witness  of  the 
Spirit,  which,  being  the  same  as  that  which  inspired  the  prophets,  Christ, 
and  his  apostles,  makes  us  immediately  feel  that  their  words  are  divine 
and  true.  The  authority  of  the  Scripture  canon  does  not  rest  upon  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  nor  upon  a  demonstration  made  by  human 
science,  but  before  all  things  upon  this  witness  of  the  Spirit.  It  matters 
little  here  that  Calvin  and  his  disciples  were  gravely  mistaken  as  to  the 
scope  of  this  inward  criterion,  applying  it  with  such  eagerness  to  all  the 
parts  and  all  the  books  of  the  traditional  Bible  indiscriminately.  The 
subjective  character  of  both  principle  and  criterion  is  not  less  evident. 

From  Zwingli  we  cite  but  a  single  text.  "  Thou  seest,"  he  said, 
"  where  the  cold  cavils  of  the  Papists  and  the  priests  will  end  when  they 
affirm  that  the  meaning  of  the  celestial  Word  depends  upon  the  judgment 
of  man.  Thou  canst  never  know  what  is  the  Church  which  can  never 
err  nor  decay,  if  thou  recognisest  not  the  Word  of  God  who  constituted 
the  Church.  This  Word  has  the  virtue  of  giving  faith  in  the  Church, 
it  can  remove  her  errors,  it  permits  the  acceptance  of  no  other  (human) 
word.  Only  pious  hearts  know  this,  for  faith  does  not  depend  upon 
the  discussions  of  men,  but  has  its  seat,  and  rests  itself  invincibly  in  the 
soul.  It  is  an  experience  which  everyone  may  have.  It  is  not  a  doc- 
trine, a  question  of  knowledge,  for  we  see  the  most  learned  men  who 
are  ignorant  of  this  thing  which  is  the  most  salutary  of  all."  1  Here 
again  the  theology  of  experience  is  substituted  for  that  of  authority. 

Nevertheless,  the  mental  habits  of  a  generation  are  not  changed  in 
a  day.  A  new  principle  planted  in  old  soil  is  long  subject  to  the  tyranny 
» "  De  Vera  et  Fals.  Rd.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  195. 


164      THE  INWARD  WITNESS  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

of  the  past,  and  is  slow  to  yield  all  its  fruits.  The  Catholic  principle 
was  destined  to  reappear  in  the  very  heart  of  Protestantism,  and  there 
create  in  another  form  a  new  religion  of  authority  by  the  substitution 
pure  and  simple  of  the  external  authority  of  Scripture  for  that  of  the 
Church.  The  Reformers  themselves  were  not  inaccessible  to  the  tempta- 
tion to  simplify  things  by  setting  up  in  their  polemics  one  infallibility 
against  another. 

To  understand  their  attitude  and  the  easily  detected  inconsistencies 
of  their  successive  statements,  we  must  recall  the  historic  circumstances 
and  conditions  in  which  they  had  to  do  their  work.  They  handled  sword 
and  trowel  at  the  same  time ;  they  were  obliged  to  make  a  front  against 
the  Catholics  on  the  right  hand  and  against  the  Anabaptists  and  Illu- 
minati  on  the  left.  Scripture  was  their  only  weapon  for  separating 
authentic  Christianity  from  the  traditions  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the 
extreme  or  immoral  Utopias  of  contemporary  sects.  How  should  it  be 
surprising  that  they  exaggerated  its  authority,  and,  dropping  their 
early  discrimination  between  the  traditional  biblical  collection  and  the 
Word  of  God,  seemed  often  to  identify  them?  Then,  having  founded 
a  new  Church,  they  were  naturally  left  to  give  it,  in  the  letter  of  Scrip- 
ture, an  external  infallible  authority,  which  should  be  in  nothing  inferior 
to  that  on  which  the  rival  Church  plumed  herself. 

Thus  their  successors  could  say  in  their  scholastic  language  that  they 
had  founded  evangelical  Protestantism  upon  two  principles,  one  material, 
justification  by  faith,  and  one  formal,  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures. 
In  reality  the  early  Reformers  knew  nothing  of  this  dualism.  As  has 
been  seen,  they  made  no  distinction  between  the  authority  of  the  book 
and  that  of  its  contents.  It  was  by  its  essential  content,  not  by  its  ex- 
trinsic claims,  that  the  book  commanded  their  consciences.  The  inward 
proof,  the  personal  experience  of  salvation,  had  with  them  preceded  all 
outward  demonstration,  and  by  this  inward  experience  the  two  so-called 
principles  of  Protestantism  had  been  brought  into  unity.  But  as  piety 
grew  weak,  this  living  unity  was  broken  by  the  Doctors  of  the  following 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  IDEA  OF  INSPIRATION  166 

age.  They  endeavoured  to  eliminate  from  their  demonstrations  every 
subjective  element;  their  wish  was  to  make  of  Scripture,  not  an  authentic 
witness  of  early  Christianity,  but  a  supernatural  and  infallible  code  of 
Christian  verities,  in  such  manner  that  these  verities  might  be  deduced 
more  juridico  vel  geometrico,  from  the  very  letter  of  the  sacred  text. 
The  constitution  of  the  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures  marks 
the  advent  of  the  period  justly  known  as  "  the  Protestant  scholastic," 
which  began  on  the  very  morrow  of  the  disappearance  of  the  Reformers. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

THE    INFALLIBILITY    OP   THE    BIBLE 
I 

Origin  of  the  Idea  of  Inspiration 

IT  was  a  great  advantage  for  the  Protestant  Doctors  to  oppose  to  the 
authority  of  the  Church  an  authority  which  the  Church  herself  had 
consecrated.  The  belief  that  the  Bible  is  of  divine  origin,  and  was  in 
some  sort  dictated  by  God,  is  in  reality  older  than  Christianity.  The 
primitive  man  cannot  imagine  and  adore  a  god  without  spontaneously 
believing  that  the  god  enters  into  communication  with  his  adorer.  And 
doubtless  the  germ  of  truth  in  this  belief  is  that  the  divine  could  not 
command  our  love  if  the  Spirit  of  God  did  not  naturally  live  in  the  depths 
of  our  being.  But  in  its  infancy  the  human  race  could  only  represent 
this  truth  under  marvellous  and  mythological  forms. 

The  idea  of  a  divine  inspiration  vouchsafed  to  certain  men  and  recog- 
nised in  certain  books  is  in  no  respect  specifically  Jewish  or  Christian; 
it  is  universal.  The  phenomena  of  inspiration  present  themselves  every- 
where under  very  much  the  same  psycho-physiological  forms:  dreams, 


166  ORIGIN  OF  THE  IDEA  OF  INSPIRATION 

ecstasies,  prophetic  fury,  visions,  a  mere  inward  suggestion,  a  mental 
alienation  explained  by  the  invasion  of  a  spirit  from  without.  In  the 
different  stages  of  civilisation  we  invariably  meet  sorcerers  and  diviners, 
oracles  and  sibyls,  prophets,  legislators,  priests,  sages,  who  are  supposed 
to  have  been  touched  by  a  divine  breath.  All  that  appeared  extraordi- 
nary in  the  actions,  thoughts,  or  utterances  of  a  man,  as  well  the  mani- 
festations of  a  mysterious  malady  as  those  of  an  exceptional  genius,  in- 
dicated the  presence  of  a  god.  All  ancient  legislation,  all  the  higher 
religions  of  the  East,  rest  upon  sacred  books  which  are  considered  as  the 
product  of  divine  inspiration. 

The  forms  of  the  phenomenon  and  the  popular  ideas  on  the  subject 
were  the  same  in  Israel  as  among  any  other  people.  But  with  Israel  reli- 
gious inspiration,  beginning  on  as  low  a  plane,  rose  infinitely  higher 
and  yielded  the  fruits  of  a  more  exquisite  and  richer  maturity.  Side 
by  side  with  these  common  and  morbid  manifestations  of  a  passive  in- 
spiration another  order  of  inspiration  was  developed,  which,  far  from 
depressing  the  mental  life  of  a  man,  carries  him,  as  in  the  prophets,  to 
its  maximum  of  intensity.  This  prophetic  inspiration  does  not  in  the 
least  degree  carry  with  it  infallibility.  God  sometimes  commands  that 
certain  revelations  be  put  into  writing,  but  in  the  work  of  redaction  and 
writing  there  is  never  any  question  of  a  special  divine  assistance.  It 
was  only  later,  when  the  religious  genius  of  the  prophets  had  become 
extinct  and  the  great  literary  epoch  had  closed,  that  a  religious  venera- 
tion arose  for  the  letter  of  the  sacred  books,  and  then  the  Jews,  forgetful 
or  ignorant  of  what  prophetic  inspiration  had  been,  conceived  a  belief 
that  the  entire  Hebrew  text,  and  the  Hellenists  that  also  the  trans- 
lation of  the  LXX,  was  the  very  word  of  God,  the  dictation  of  his  Spirit. 
Thus  by  degrees  the  dogmatic  of  the  schools  took  the  place  of  the  free 
poetry  of  the  early  ages.  The  Platonic  theory  of  enthusiasm  and  divine 
madness  formed  the  transition  between  the  two.  Philo  applies  it  without 
scruple  to  the  prophetic  state.  Human  consciousness  disappears  when 
that  of  God  comes  in.  Philo  congratulates  himself  upon  having  had  his 


INSPIRATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH         167 

moments  of  divine  ecstasy.  To  certain  dignities,  like  that  of  the  high 
priest,  belonged  the  gift  of  unconscious  inspiration.  The  allegorical 
interpretation  at  that  time  in  universal  use  proves  the  general  belief  in 
the  inspiration  of  the  sacred  writings.  But  it  was  also  an  ingenious 
means  of  preserving  the  freedom  of  the  mind  in  the  new  time,  and  of 
escaping  that  tyranny  of  the  letter  which  would  have  arrested  all  initia- 
tive and  all  progress.  Thus  exegesis  saved' philosophic  liberty. 

II 

Belief  in  Inspiration  in  the  Christum  Church 

HEIRS  of  the  Jewish  tradition,  the  early  Christians  did  little  more  than 
continue  it.  They  cited  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament  with 
the  same  confidence  as  the  Hebrew  text.  Jesus  and  his  disciples  looked 
upon  the  sacred  books  of  their  people  in  no  other  way  than  other  men 
of  their  generation.  Paul's  reasonings  upon  a  word  in  Genesis,  which 
is  in  the  singular  instead  of  the  plural,  sufficiently  show  that  the  apostle 
had  religiously  kept  what  he  had  learned  in  the  school  of  Gamaliel.1 

Nevertheless  the  traditional  doctrine  did  not  fetter  the  consciousness 
of  Jesus.  By  virtue  of  the  immediate  intuition  of  his  consciousness,  in 
which  he  found  the  certitude  and  the  light  of  a  higher  revelation,  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  put  aside  the  letter  of  the  law,  whether  as  relative  and 
transitory  or  as  contrary  to  his  own  moral  and  religious  inspiration.  He 
promised  his  disciples  a  new  Spirit.  Their  firm  assurance  that  they  had 
the  perfect  revelation  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ  and  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 
which  they  had  received  naturally  lifted  them  above  earlier  revelations. 
The  Spirit  gave  Paul  liberty  to  proclaim  the  abolition  of  the  rule  of 
the  law,  and  by  his  subtile  exegesis  to  find  in  the  very  code  of  the  Old 
Covenant,  and  especially  in  the  prophets,  the  gospel  of  the  new  time. 

This  new  inspiration  which  gave  to  all  the  preachers  of  the  gospel 
the  assurance  of  being,  and  the  right  to  claim  to  be,  bearers  of  the 
"  Word  of  God,"  gave  rise  to  a  new  collection  of  sacred  books.  But  in 

1  GaL  iii.  15-ia 


168  INSPIRATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 
the  apostolic  time  no  one  had  gone  so  far.  No  one  then  foresaw  that  a 
second  volume  would  be  added  to  the  Bible.  People  lived  in  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  end  of  the  world.  Jesus  had  promised  the  Church  his  Spirit, 
not  a  new  book.  The  new  inspiration  was  not  the  privilege  of  a  few 
chosen  men,  but  the  inalienable  possession  of  all  Christians.  "  He  who 
has  not  received  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is  none  of  his."  Far  from  creating 
distinctions,  this  universal  inspiration  established  a  real  unity.  For  this 
reason  the  apostle  Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians  that  the  man  who  has 
received  the  Spirit,  6  TTVCV/MITIKOS,  judges  of  all  things  and  is  judged 
by  no  man,  and  to  the  Thessalonians,  "  I  speak  as  unto  wise  men;  judge 
ye  what  I  say.  Prove  all  things,  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  Chris- 
tianity, therefore,  enters  the  world  not  as  the  religion  of  a  new  servi- 
tude, but  as  the  religion  of  the  inward  freedom  of  the  soul. 

This  apostolic  inspiration  did  not  put  those  whom  it  touched  beyond 
the  possibility  of  human  fallibility.  Paul  at  Antioch  was  obliged  to 
rebuke  Peter  severely  for  a  moral  error.  He  himself  carefully  distin- 
guishes between  the  eternal  religious  verity,  the  very  commandments  of 
Christ,  and  his  own  individual  views.  He  supposes  the  possibility  of  an 
error  of  memory  from  his  pen ;  he  declares  that  he  is  constantly  making 
progress  in  knowledge  of  the  truth;  he  modifies  his  early  ideas  upon 
many  points  and  ingenuously  confesses  that  he  considers  his  present 
knowledge  as  imperfect,  destined  to  give  place  to  more  light  and  greater 
accuracy.  We  perceive  the  same  modest  human  consciousness  in  other 
sacred  writers,  who  give  us  glimpses  of  their  travail  of  thought  in  com- 
posing their  works.  Luke  had  certainly  received  the  Spirit  of  God. 
But  read  again  the  prologue  to  his  Gospel :  does  he  speak  otherwise  than 
as  a  good  historian  of  his  time,  who  has  carried  on  a  process  of  research 
and  criticism  in  order  to  give  a  more  full  and  accurate  account  than  those 
given  by  his  predecessors?  Is  there  a  single  one  of  these  writers — save 
perhaps  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  faithful  in  this  respect  to  the 
literary  class  in  which  he  works — is  there  a  single  one,  I  ask,  who  did 
not  write  for  the  occasion,  in  view  of  the  requirements  of  circumstances, 


INSPIRATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH         169 

or  who  presents  his  work  as  a  divine  writing,  to  be  added  to  the  canon 
of  the  Old  Testament? 

These  writings,  therefore,  have  no  appearance  of  being  the  author- 
ised publication  of  divine  oracles;  they  appear  as  the  spontaneous  pro- 
duction of  a  great  classic  literature,  born  of  a  profound  religious  faith, 
of  a  powerful  common  inspiration,  but  in  which  the  general  unity  does 
not  exclude  a  diversity  of  genius,  of  thought,  and  of  style,  and  in  which 
are  not  lacking,  side  by  side  with  beautiful  thoughts  and  striking  truths, 
imperfections  of  form,  errors  of  detail,  traces  of  former  prejudices, 
and  long  superannuated  methods  of  exegesis  and  reasoning. 

From  the  middle  of  the  second  century  everything  is  changed.  By 
degrees,  as  documents  of  primitive  Christianity  came  into  use  for  read- 
ing in  public  worship  side  by  side  with  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
they  were  classed  in  the  same  category,  and  the  same  Philonian  concep- 
tion of  inspiration  was  applied  to  them.  In  them,  as  in  the  writings  of 
the  prophets,  they  heard  the  lyre  or  the  cithera,  the  heavenly  musician, 
the  divine  Logos,  singing  to  the  glory  of  God.  It  is  impossible  to 
imagine  a  more  complete  annihilation  of  human  individuality,  and  modern 
theories  of  inspiration  have  devised  nothing  more  extreme. 

But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  seek  to  extract  from  the  poetic  imagin- 
ings of  this  period  a  fixed  and  clearly  defined  doctrine  of  inspiration. 
Side  by  side  with  propositions  and  arguments  which  seem  to  imply  a  lit- 
eral theopneusty,  we  find  others,  sometimes  by  the  same  Church  Father, 
which  prove  how  great  was  still  the  liberty  and  how  loose  and  uncertain 
the  theory.  Clement  of  Alexandria  placed  philosophy  beside  the  law,  and 
the  sages  on  a  par  with  the  prophets.  Justin  Martyr  and  Theophilus 
of  Antioch  no  more  doubted  the  divine  character  of  the  Sibylline  Oracles 
than  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah.  Tertullian  held  that  every  edifying 
book  was  divinely  inspired.  Origen  went  farther:  he  clearly  distin- 
guished in  the  Scriptures  portions  of  highly  unequal  inspiration  and 
value.  Even  Augustine,  though  he  said  that  the  style  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  everywhere  recognisable,  and  that  a  divine  grace  had  placed 


170         INSPIRATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  sacred  writers  above  all  possibility  of  error,  nevertheless  asserted  that 
this  supernatural  assistance  had  not  given  them  the  power  of  overstep- 
ping the  natural  limits  of  human  intelligence,  and  that  they  spoke,  as 
men,  of  divine  things. 

Warned  by  the  prophetic  excesses  of  Montanism,  Catholic  theologians 
laid  less  emphasis  upon  the  theory  of  the  "  divine  madness."  The  in- 
tense spirit  of  Tertullian  might  find  satisfaction  in  saying  that  God 
speaks  by  the  mouth  of  man,  when  the  man  himself  knows  not  what  he 
says,  but  the  Alexandrians  found  it  more  easy  to  conceive  of  inspiration 
as  an  act  of  the  Logos,  which,  far  from  annihilating  the  natural  faculties 
of  the  mind,  has  the  effect  of  making  them  more  acute,  more  clear,  and 
more  apt  to  attain  to  truth. 

The  limits  of  inspiration  remained  especially  uncertain.  Neither 
Church  Fathers  nor  councils  could  agree  upon  the  number  of  the  books 
which  are  the  supernatural  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  nor  upon  the  marks 
by  which  they  may  be  known.  A  certain  book,  the  "  Shepherd  of  Her- 
mas,"  for  example,  regarded  by  some  as  a  divine  revelation,  is  branded 
by  others  as  the  breviary  of  adultery.  The  Revelation  of  St.  John, 
generally  venerated  in  Western  Christendom,  is  slighted  in  Alexandria 
as  an  apocryphal  work.  It  is  precisely  the  other  way  with  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  down  to  the  Synod  of  Carthage  (397).  Justin  Martyr, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  others  cite  as  the  Word  of  God  gospels  since 
then  lost.  The  still  extant  lists  of  the  canonical  books  from  the  second 
to  the  fifth  century  offer  surprising  disparities. 

They  got  over  the  difficulty  by  the  distinction  which  became  current 
between  the  writings  called  homologoumena,  or  generally  received,  and 
antilegomena,  or  works  of  doubtful  authenticity  or  disputed  authority. 
The  method  of  the  Antioch  school,  more  historical  and  grammatical  than 
that  of  Alexandria,  finally  arrived  at  a  more  clear-cut  and  thorough- 
going criticism.  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  if  we  are  to  believe  his  ac- 
cusers, questioned  the  sacred  character  of  several  books  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  such  as  the  Song  of  Songs  and  the  Epistle  of  James, 


INSPIRATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH         171 

carried  the  Psalms  of  David  to  the  times  of  Zerubabel  and  Ezekiel,  and 
despoiled  the  majority  of  them  of  their  prophetic  meaning  by  interpret- 
ing them  according  to  Jewish  ideas. 

The  arguments  for  the  divinity  of  biblical  inspiration  were  not  less 
diverse  and  indecisive.  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  reason  for 
the  prevailing  uncertainty  upon  so  capital  a  doctrine,  and  the  languid 
interest  felt  in  escaping  from  it.  By  declaring  herself  infallible  the 
Church  had  made  herself  the  object  of  faith.  She  had  become  the  high- 
est authority  in  questions  of  doctrine  and  discipline.  People  no  longer 
believed  in  the  Church  because  of  Scripture,  but  in  Scripture  because 
of  the  authority  of  the  Church,  as  St.  Augustine  said. 

This  is  why  nothing  was  decided  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The  time 
produced  opinions  of  the  loosest  character,  side  by  side  with  those  of  the 
strictest.  Scholasticism  was  as  incapable  of  criticism  as  of  exegesis. 

Both  sciences  emerged,  modestly  enough  at  first,  with  the  Renascence, 
and  put  in  circulation  more  liberal  ideas  and  especially  a  more  serious 
method.  Erasmus  held  that  the  apostles,  though  animated  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  were  none  the  less  fallible  men,  and  that  without  injury  to  the 
gospel  they  were  mistaken  in  certain  matters  and  ignorant  in  others. 
And  finally  the  opinions  of  Luther  concerning  the  prophets  and  a  certain 
number  of  supposed  apostolic  writings — opinions  set  forth  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter — show  how  free  was  the  Christian  conscience  in  the  early 
years  of  the  Reformation  with  regard  to  the  traditional  canon. 

We  must  then  conclude  that,  prepared  in  various  ways  in  the  syna- 
gogue and  the  Church,  the  dogma  of  the  authority  of  the  Bible  was 
not  yet  defined  and  constituted  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  either 
as  regards  the  theory  of  inspiration  or  concerning  the  contents  of  the 
second  collection.  Up  to  this  time  the  Church  had  sufficed  for  every- 
thing. It  was  quite  otherwise  with  the  communities  born  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  authority  of  the  Scriptures  being  put  in  opposition  to 
that  of  the  ancient  Church  and  her  tradition,  it  became  necessary  to 
define  the  characteristics  of  this  supreme  authority.  The  task  of  the 


172  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  DOGMA 

Protestantism  of  that  day  was  to  return  to  the  doctrine  so  inconsistently 
elaborated  in  the  past,  to  unify  it  and  carry  it  to  its  ultimate  conclu- 
sion. At  no  less  a  cost  could  the  Bible  be  transformed  into  an  external 
infallible  authority.  The  complete  development  of  the  new  dogma  took 
place  in  two  periods.  The  first  is  represented  by  the  Protestant  Con- 
fessions of  Faith ;  the  second  by  the  construction  of  the  orthodox  theory 
in  the  seventeenth  century. 

m 

The  Principle  of  the  Dogma 

THE  principle  of  the  Protestant  dogma  of  authority  in  matters  of  faith 
was  first  officially  laid  down  in  the  Confessions  of  Faith  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

In  the  first  thought  of  their  authors  the  symbols  neither  had  nor 
ought  to  have  any  normative  authority  in  themselves.  They  were  not 
decretals,  but  mere  historic  expositions  drawn  up  with  express  apologetic 
purpose,  to  refute  the  calumnies  of  some  and  to  deny  all  complicity  with 
the  excesses  of  others.  By  them  the  Protestants  desired  to  make  known 
to  princes  and  peoples  what  in  reality  they  were  and  what  they  believed. 
The  Confession  of  Faith  presented  by  Melancthon  at  the  Diet  of  Augs- 
burg in  1530  had  no  other  purpose.  The  same  motive  caused  Calvin 
to  take  up  the  pen  in  1534.  The  first  edition  of  the  "  Christian  Insti- 
tutes," addressed  to  Francis  I,  was  an  extended  Confession  of  Faith. 
The  Calvinistic  Confessions  of  Faith  are  abridged  "  Christian  Insti- 
tutes." 

These  documents  based  their  authority  neither  on  themselves  nor  on 
the  authority  of  the  men  or  the  synods  that  issued  them,  but  solely  upon 
the  Word  of  God,  the  doctrine  of  which,  to  the  exclusion  of  any  other 
authority,  they  claimed  to  reproduce.  Necessarily,  therefore,  they  in- 
sisted above  all  upon  the  authority  of  this  Word,  the  supremacy  of  which 
no  other  authority,  whether  of  heaven  or  earth,  could  call  in  question; 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  DOGMA  173 

and  this  they  all  did  unanimously,  with  a  humility  and  a  tenacity  alike 
extraordinary.  Expressing  themselves  in  popular  style  and  in  brief 
statements,  they  necessarily  dropped  out  those  distinctions  which  all  the 
Reformers  made  between  the  Word  of  God  and  the  traditional  biblical 
collection  formed  and  preserved  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  They 
took  no  pains  to  lay  down  a  theory  of  divine  inspiration,  which  at  that 
time  was  contested  by  no  one ;  they  did  not  measure  its  degrees  nor  describe 
its  forms,  nor  did  they  define  the  true  relation  between  the  divine  doctrine 
and  the  human  text,  between  the  content  and  that  which  contained  it. 
Exhilarated  by  the  liquor,  they  took  no  note  of  the  goblet  that  contained 
it,  but  passing  over  the  accessories,  and  obeying  the  demand,  at  that 
epoch  universal,  for  an  infallible  external  authority,  they  boldly  identi- 
fied the  Word  of  God  with  the  traditional  Bible  and  emphatically  uttered 
the  brief  formula :  "  The  canonical  Scriptures  are  the  very  word  of  God, 
and  this  Word  proves  itself  to  be  true  and  salutary,  not  by  the  human 
witness  of  the  Church,  but  by  the  divine  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  conscience." 

Doubtless  there  was  here  some  incoherence  which  the  discussions  of 
the  following  age  would  bring  out.  There  is  neither  parity  nor  homo- 
geneity between  a  literary  fact,  such  as  the  divers  historical  collections 
of  the  early  Christian  books,  gropingly  made  by  men  sometimes  unen- 
lightened and  sometimes  biassed,  and  the  essentially  subjective  moral  and 
religious  fact  of  doctrinal  evidence.  To  draw  a  conclusion  from  one  to 
the  other  is  logically  impossible.  I  never  cease  to  marvel,  for  example, 
that  the  inward  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  able  to  designate  to  the 
French  Reformers  of  1559  the  twenty-seven  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  no  doubt  the  thirty-nine  of  the  Old  Testament  also,  and  that 
the  list  which  they  drew  up  in  the  Confession,  called  of  La  Rochelle,  has 
not  one  book  less  nor  one  book  more  than  that  most  generally  received 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church;  or  that  the  question  of  the  apocryphal 
books  could  be  so  easily  settled  in  the  same  way.  The  two  facts  are  not 
in  the  same  order.  One  has  to  do  with  moral  and  religious  experience, 


174  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  DOGMA 

the  other  with  history  and  literary  criticism.  Later  they  were  neces- 
sarily disjoined  by  the  progress  of  biblical  learning.  Protestant  theo- 
logians became  convinced,  at  heavy  cost,  that  it  is  impossible  to  base  an 
external  authority,  infallible  a  priori,  upon  a  subjective  fact  of  moral 
experience.  But,  at  the  time  we  are  now  considering,  no  one  had  any 
suspicion  of  this,  except  perhaps  Luther  in  his  moments  of  clairvoyance 
and  intellectual  freedom. 

No  one  among  the  Reformers  handled  the  old  Scriptural  argument, 
"  It  is  written"  with  more  decision  and  vigour  than  Luther.  No  one 
more  firmly  believed  in  the  divine  origin  and  inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. But  neither  was  anyone  more  at  liberty  with  regard  to  the  letter 
and  the  form  of  the  traditional  collection.  He  literally  inaugurated 
biblical  criticism ;  and  if  his  work  in  this  direction  was  not  carried  farther, 
it  was  because  he  had  no  successor.  The  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  was 
with  him  not  a  dogma,  an  intellectual  theory  established  before  the  read- 
ing of  the  books,  but  a  religious  fact,  a  moral  conviction  created  and 
continually  renewed  during  the  reading  by  the  immediate  contact  of  the 
conscience  with  the  truth  of  God.  Thence  came  the  inspired  character 
of  his  faith,  its  invincible  assurance  and  serene  liberty. 

Between  the  Lutheran  symbols  and  those  of  the  French  Reformers 
there  is  this  difference :  that  the  former,  unlike  the  latter,  never  enumerate 
the  canonical  books,  nor  give  any  lists  of  them.  Indeed  they  could  not. 
Their  authors  would  not  repudiate  the  classification  made  by  Luther  him- 
self in  his  translation  of  the  Bible,  and  they  dared  not  sanction  it.  They 
tacitly  let  the  stream  of  custom  and  ancient  tradition  flow  over  the 
Reformer's  work  and  efface  it. 

The  Reformation  Fathers  considered  the  Bible  from  within;  they 
embraced  the  saving  doctrines,  the  religious  marrow  of  the  book,  without 
concerning  themselves  about  the  history  of  the  text  and  the  formation 
of  the  canon.  Their  successors  considered  the  Bible  from  without,  in 
the  extrinsic  qualities  which  demonstrate  its  divine  origin  and  permitted 
them  to  claim  for  it  an  implicit  and  anticipated  faith  in  all  that  it  may 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA  175 

contain,  previous  to  examination  and  experience.  Thus  they  fell  into 
the  old  rut  of  Catholicism  and  sought,  like  it,  to  build  up  a  religion  of 
authority. 

To  the  early  Reformers  the  proposition,  "  The  Bible  is  the  Word  of 
God  "  was  the  shout  of  the  soul  saved  from  sin  and  death,  set  free  from 
all  outward  servitude,  bound  solely  by  the  inward  monitions  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  With  their  successors  the  same  proposition  became  an  abstract 
theorem,  a  truth  of  logic  from  which  one  had  only  to  deduce  the  conse- 
quences. The  exterior  authority  of  the  letter  of  the  Bible  took  the  place 
of  the  authority  of  the  Church ;  and  by  the  same  syllogistic  and  deductive 
method — like  jurists  with  an  undebatable  code — the  theologians  with 
marvellous  facility  drew  from  it  all  their  doctrines,  and  built  upon  it  a 
system  which  was  only  a  new  Catholicism,  acephalous  and  inconsequential. 
Let  us  examine  how  they  did  it. 

IV 

The  Construction  of  the  Dogma 

IF  we  ask  why  the  distinction  between  the  canonical  Scriptures  and  the 
Word  of  God  made  by  the  early  Reformers  remained  unfruitful,  and 
even  gave  place  before  long  to  its  opposite,  the  identification  of  the  two 
terms  pure  and  simple,  we  shall  find  another  reason  than  that  drawn 
from  the  circumstances  of  the  hour  and  the  facilities  and  advantages 
which  such  a  simplification  gave  to  Protestant  polemics.  Something  was 
going  on  analogous  to  what  we  saw  in  the  second  century,  when  the 
Christian  religion,  the  transcendent  principle  of  inspiration  and  life,  be- 
came so  incarnated  and  imprisoned  in  a  visible,  organised  Church  as  even 
to  be  identified  with  it.  All  religions  of  authority  end  thus  in  materialis- 
ing their  object  in  a  sensible  form,  because  in  no  other  way  can  their 
authority  become  external  and  palpable.  For  the  same  reason  the  word 
of  God,  or  the  inward  revelation  of  God  to  the  conscience,  was  in  the 
seventeenth  century  materialised  and  imprisoned  in  the  traditional  letter 


176  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA 

and  Codex  of  Scripture,  so  that  the  two  terms  were  used  interchangeably 

without  the  slightest  distinction  or  reserve. 

And  this  result  was  almost  forced  by  the  too  intellectual  conception 
of  the  "  Word  of  God  "  held  by  the  Reformers  and  by  them  transmitted 
to  their  successors.1  By  this  term  they  understood  above  all  else  a  doc- 
trine (doctrina  divina)  supernaturally  revealed  to  men  by  God.  A  doc- 
trine cannot  do  without  its  adequate  expression,  for  when  ill  expressed  it 
is  no  longer  true.  Where  should  the  adequate  and  perfect  expression 
of  the  divine  doctrine  be  sought,  if  not  in  the  Bible? 

This  being  so,  the  Bible,  which  until  then  had  been  only  a  historic 
instrument  for  arriving  at  the  discovery  of  true  Christianity,  which  they 
sought  to  restore  to  the  Church,  was  changed  into  a  code  of  divine 
verities,  itself  divine,  into  a  supernatural  manual  of  pure  religion,  and, 
by  the  same  act,  notwithstanding  all  protests  that  might  arise,  this  reli- 
gion, like  Catholicism  entirely  expressed  and  inclosed  in  a  sacred  code 
with  its  authentic  formulas,  necessarily  took  on  the  form  of  a  legal  rek- 
gion,  and  was  in  danger  of  losing  its  specifically  evangelical  character. 

Once  entered  upon  this  downward  path,  Protestantism  must  keep  on 
to  the  foot.  The  Bible,  literally  defined  as  the  Word  of  God,  was  as 
much  opposed  to  the  claims  of  the  human  reason  as  to  those  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  To  accord  to  the  reason  and  conscience  of  man  the 
smallest  faculty  or  competence  to  distinguish  between  the  human  parts 
and  the  divine  parts,  between  things  obligatory  and  things  not  binding, 
would  be  at  once  to  destroy  its  sovereign  authority  and  leave  conscience 
and  reason  with  the  last  word  in  every  discussion.  Quenstedt  was  right : 
"  If  in  the  canonical  books  anything  has  come  from  a  human  being,  and 
not  from  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  certitude  and  stability 
of  the  entire  Scriptures  would  be  imperilled,  its  full  divine  authority 
would  be  destroyed,  and  our  whole  faith  would  become  insecure." 

Catholics  did  not  find  the  same  necessity  for  pushing  the  dogma  of 
the  Scriptures  to  its  extreme  conclusion.     Side  by  side  with  Scripture 
1  Luther,  in  Rothe,  "  Zur  Dogmatik,"  p.  137. 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA  177 

they  had  the  authority  of  the  Church,  which  served  as  foundation  for  the 
Scriptures  themselves.  They  were  therefore  at  first  better  disposed  than 
Protestants  to  make  concessions  to  the  new-born  criticism.  Not  only 
did  Jesuits  like  Bellarmin  explicitly  recognise  human  collaboration  in 
the  historical  books  of  the  Bible,  but  others  even  granted  that  certain 
errors  might  have  crept  into  it.  We  may  observe  with  what  truly  Nor- 
man irony  Richard  Simon  speaks  of  the  anxiety  of  the  Protestant  doc- 
tors, who  rest  everything  on  the  integrity  and  infallibility  of  the  text 
of  Scripture,  while  learned  Catholics,  knowing  that  their  faith  is  fixed 
upon  another  foundation,  give  themselves  up  to  research  without  dis- 
quietude or  scruple. 

Protestant  theology  did  not  revise  its  theory  of  inspiration  until 
after  it  had  rigorously  worked  out  the  conclusions  of  that  theory. 
Properly  speaking,  the  Scriptures  had  only  one  author,  God  himself,  or, 
preferably  perhaps,  the  Holy  Spirit.  Doubtless,  to  put  his  Word  into 
writing,  God  must  needs  make  use  of  human  hands.  But  these  human 
writers  were  only  instruments,  secretaries;  more  correctly  still,  calami, 
pens,  by  means  of  which  the  divine  author  wrote.  There  is  no  question 
here  of  an  inward  illumination,  enlightening  these  human  organs  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  That  was  needless,  since  they  had  no  part  nor  responsi- 
bility in  what  they  wrote;  their  inspiration  consisted  in  the  good  will 
with  which  they  lent  their  hands  to  the  master  who  asked  for  them. 
They  were  not  unconscious,  but,  save  for  the  mechanical  act  of  writing, 
entirely  passive.  They  may  have  understood  what  they  set  down,  but 
that  was  not  necessary,  and  indeed  was  not  always  the  case,  as  several 
of  them  avow,  and  as  was  proved  by  the  example  of  Balaam's  ass. 

The  Bible  is  a  letter  from  God;  form  and  matter,  ideas  and  words, 
addressed  from  heaven  to  men.  Inspiration  is  conceived  as  a  super- 
natural dictation. 

In  this  act  Protestant  scholasticism  distinguishes  three  moments :  the 
command  to  take  the  pen  and  write  (impulsus  ad  scribendum),  the  revela- 
tion of  that  which  is  to  be  written  (suggestio  rerum),  and  the  sugges- 


178  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA 

tion  of  the  words  in  which  the  divine  thought  must  be  formulated  (sug- 
gestio  verborum).  Thus  nothing  is  left  to  chance  or  human  fallibility. 
God  himself  is  responsible  for  the  whole. 

Arrived  at  this  point  the  theory  was  confronted  with  evident  facts, 
and  was  obliged  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  them.  Between  dif- 
ferent parts  of  Scripture  there  are  discrepancies  and  even  contradictions ; 
in  any  case  there  are  varieties  of  style.  How  reconcile  varieties  or  con- 
trasts with  the  unity  of  the  principal  author,  that  is,  God?  The  first 
and  least  dangerous  expedient  was  to  refer  everything  to  the  will  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  The  Spirit,  liberal  dispenser  of  tongues  of  every  sort, 
gives  to  each  one  that  which  he  prefers  or  deems  best  suited  to  his  design. 
But  at  this  point  students  began  to  wonder  that  each  biblical  writer  spoke 
precisely  in  the  style  and  with  the  forms  of  reasoning  already  known 
and  determined  by  the  culture  and  habits  of  mind  of  his  own  time.  To 
explain  this  astounding  invariable  agreement  it  was  then  said  that  the 
Holy  Spirit,  in  choosing  his  expressions  and  forms  of  speech,  took  ac- 
count of  the  individuality  and  degree  of  culture  of  each  of  his  organs, 
leaving  him  free  to  speak  and  write  as  he  would  have  spoken  and  written 
if  he  had  been  left  to  his  own  genius.  This  first  concession  was  dan- 
gerous indeed. 

Another  difficulty.  Neither  the  Old  nor  the  New  Testament  is 
written  in  Hebrew  or  Greek  of  perfect  grammatical  purity.  The 
Church  Fathers,  Bossuet,  and  almost  all  the  great  preachers,  have  elo- 
quently insisted  upon  the  contrast  between  the  sublimity  of  their  teach- 
ings and  the  rudeness  or  poverty  of  their  utterance.  Erasmus  and  the 
humanists  give  no  different  judgment.  But  in  the  theory  of  verbal 
inspiration,  set  up  by  the  Protestant  theologians,  such  barbarisms, 
solecisms,  faults  of  declension  and  syntax  as  were  discovered  in  one  or 
another  biblical  writing  became  a  stumbling-block.  They  sought  to 
put  it  out  of  the  way  either  by  more  subtile  distinctions  or  by  the  most 
startling  expedients.  There  was  a  long  polemic  between  the  purists, 
so-called  because  they  maintained  that  the  Bible  from  cover  to  cover  was 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA  179 

irreproachably  correct,  and  those  who  made  the  indispensable  concessions 
to  philology  and  grammar.  On  the  side  of  orthodox  dogmatics  the 
debate  was  closed  by  the  paradoxical  assertion :  "  The  style  of  Holy 
Scripture  is  tainted  by  no  grammatical  vice  nor  any  barbarism  or 
solecism."  The  grave  fact  here  is  not  the  question,  but  the  answer  which 
it  was  deemed  necessary  to  make  to  it. 

They  could  not  stop  at  asserting  the  inspiration  of  the  words:  it 
became  necessary  to  go  on  even  to  that  of  the  syllables,  the  vowels,  and 
consonants.  The  occasion  was  this: 

A  learned  Hebraist,  professor  in  the  Protestant  Academy  of  Saumur, 
discovered  and  published  the  fact  that  the  vowel  points  of  the  Masoretic 
writings  are  relatively  of  more  recent  date  than  the  Hebrew  text,  which 
was  at  first  constituted  with  consonants  only.  The  vowel  points  are 
the  work  of  Jewish  rabbis  who  invented  them  about  the  beginning  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  to  fix  the  pronunciation  of  the  text.  Great  was  the  dis- 
tress among  the  strict  partisans  of  plenary  inspiration.  If  the  vowel 
points  were  not  inspired  the  text  itself  became  uncertain,  and  the  per- 
fection and  authority  of  the  Bible  were  gravely  attacked.  The  two 
Buxtorfs  placed  their  colossal  erudition  at  the  service  of  the  orthodox 
thesis  to  refute  the  discovery  made  by  criticism.  They  succeeded  very 
ill.  But  dogmatics  came  once  more  to  the  rescue  with  an  arbitrary 
solution  of  a  problem  of  literary  history.  The  latest  Reformed  symbol 
proclaimed  the  antiquity  of  the  vowel  points  and  the  entire  inspiration 
of  the  sacred  text,  with  regard  to  the  vowels  as  well  as  the  consonants. 

It  was  necessary  to  maintain  that  the  Scriptures  were  exempt  from 
error  not  only  in  matters  of  doctrine  and  morals,  but  in  matters  of  his- 
tory, geography,  cosmology,  and  onomastics;  and  as  Rome  had  con- 
demned Galileo,  so  Wittenburg  and  Geneva,  in  the  name  of  the  dogma, 
denied  all  discoveries  which  seemed  to  imperil  the  verbal  infallibility  of 
the  sacred  text.  Roman  intolerance  had  been  odious,  but  the  claims  of 
Protestant  scholasticism  became  ridiculous. 

With  such  inconsistencies  was  the  new  orthodoxy  afflicted  that  the 


180  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA 

liberal  studies  which  theology  had  encouraged  were  about  to  turn  to  her 
confusion.     If  the  text  of  the  Bible  is  divine,  it  is  impossible  to  apply 
too  much  zeal  and  patience  to  the  task  of  restoring  its  original  and 
authentic  form.     The  only  editions  in  existence  had  been  printed  from  a 
small  number  of  manuscripts,  nearly  all  very  recent.     Who  could  guar- 
antee that  the  successive  copies,  made  in  the  course  of  centuries,  had 
remained  true  to  the  original?     Men  set  themselves,  with  an  ardour 
never  since  relaxed,  to  the  search  for  other  manuscripts   and  to  the 
minute  collation  of  all  the  textual  witnesses.     The  number  of  the  various 
or  new  readings  thus  accumulated  by  such  men  as  Estienne,  Beza,  Richard 
Simon,  Mill,  and  Wettstein  soon  mounted  up  into  the  tens  of  thousands. 
But  what  avails  the  literal  inspiration  of  words  and  syllables  if,  by  the 
act  of  ignorant,  inattentive,  or  even  biassed  copyists  the  text  has  come 
down  to  us  corrupted,  or  at  least  uncertain?     Is  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  be  made  of  no  avail  by  the  stupidity  or  the  perversity  of  men  ? 
The  case  was  grave.     How  should  it  be  resolved?     There  was  but  one 
choice:   either  to  proclaim  the  divine  character  of  the  textus  receptus, 
published  by  the  Elzevirs  in  the  seventeenth  century,  or  to  accept  the 
results  of  biblical  criticism  with  all  their  consequences.     Neither  of  these 
solutions  was  satisfactory.     The  authority  of  the  so-called  "  received 
text "   after   all  rested  only   upon   a  bookseller's   announcement,   and 
criticism,  becoming  daily  bolder,  was  destined  to  give  the  death-blow  to 
the  dogmatic  theory  of  inspiration. 

The  question  of  the  biblical  canon  and  its  authentic  limits  gave  rise 
to  still  graver  questions.  The  apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
preserved  in  the  German  Bibles,  had  been  severely  excluded  from  the 
Reformed  Bibles.  When  the  Catholics  accused  the  Protestants  of  muti- 
lating the  divine  Scriptures  they  retorted  with  the  accusation  that  the 
Catholics  had  added  to  it  works  purely  human  and  unauthoritative. 
Caught  between  the  Catholic  Church  whose  tradition  it  could  not  accept 
without  committing  suicide,  and  the  independent  criticism  whose  re- 
searches it  feared,  Protestant  orthodoxy  found  itself  in  a  no-thorough- 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA  181 

fare.  How  could  it  know  whether  in  the  existing  collection  were  to  be 
found  all  the  books  written  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  whether  among  those 
actually  there  might  not  be  found  some  unauthentic  or  interpolated 
books?  Those  who  read  the  Old  Testament  attentively  could  detect  in 
it  allusions  to  several  prophetic  books  which  we  do  not  possess,  and  in 
the  New  it  is  certain  that  some  Epistles  of  Paul,  now  lost,  are  wanting. 
To  all  questions  concerning  the  integrity  or  the  authenticity  of  the 
books  of  the  Bible  they  were  fain,  then,  to  reply  by  an  act  of  faith  in 
the  Providence  of  God,  who,  having  made  the  gift  of  his  Word  to  men, 
would  not  permit  it  to  be  altered,  or  any  part  of  it  to  be  lost. 

The  question  of  the  authenticity  of  the  ancient  Scriptures,  which 
since  that  time  has  provoked  so  many  controversies  and  researches,  seemed 
to  these  theologians  of  minor  importance.  If  God  is  in  fact  the  sole 
responsible  author  of  the  biblical  writings,  what  matter  the  names  or 
the  persons  of  those  who  merely  held  the  pen?  What  does  it  matter 
that  they  should  have  been  eye-witnesses  or  have  immediate  knowledge 
of  the  facts  that  they  related,  since  they  wrote  not  from  the  memory 
of  things  they  knew,  but  as  God  dictated  to  them. 

Therefore,  to  prove  the  divinity  of  the  Bible,  they  did  not  start,  like 
orthodox  teachers  of  modern  times,  with  the  authenticity  of  the  individual 
writings  in  the  Bible  and  the  veracity  of  their  authors.  Proofs  of  this 
nature,  whether  historic  or  moral,  can  only  support  a  human  faith  in 
Holy  Scripture;  a  likelihood,  a  probability  which  will  never  equal  the 
divine  certitude  in  which  alone  the  Christian  conscience  can  find  rest  and 
satisfaction.  "  If  we  will  indeed  minister  to  the  needs  of  consciences," 
said  Calvin,  "  and  hinder  them  from  wandering  and  vacillating  in  doubt 
and  perpetual  instability,  we  must  seek  the  ground  for  our  conviction 
in  something  higher  than  human  reasonings,  opinions,  or  conjectures, 
I  mean  in  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Just  as  God  alone  can  be 
the  sufficient  witness  to  his  Word,  so  the  Word  will  find  no  faith  in  the 
hearts  of  men  until  it  has  been  certified  and  sealed  by  the  inward  witness 
of  the  Spirit." 


182  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  DOGMA 

The  true  demonstration  of  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures  is,  therefore, 
an  inward  revelation  taking  place  in  the  consciousness  at  the  moment  of 
reading,  and  making  the  truth  appear  as  the  sunlight.  We  know  that 
light  is  light  by  the  mere  fact  that  it  gives  us  light.  So  the  old  theology 
never  undertook  to  demonstrate  by  reasonable  proofs  the  essential  dig- 
nity of  the  Bible.  It  left  it  to  justify  itself  to  the  consciousness,  for 
it  has  in  itself,  as  Calvin  said,  the  faculty  of  showing  its  truth  as  things 
white  or  black  of  showing  their  colour,  and  things  bitter  or  sweet  of 
showing  their  flavour. 

There  is  in  fact  nothing  to  oppose  to  this  appeal  to  experience,  to 
moral  and  religious  evidence.  But  this  evidence,  offered  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  pious  souls,  is  a  subjective  principle  like  that  of  philosophy 
or  morals.  How  can  it  serve  as  the  basis  of  an  external  material 
authority?  Here  is  the  fallacy,  the  weak  point  of  Protestant  scholas- 
ticism. 

Furthermore,  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  the  conscience  is  in  the 
essentially  moral  and  religious  order,  and  only  by  persuasion  and  sophis- 
try can  it  be  extended  to  questions  of  history  and  literature.  When 
from  a  religious  impression  we  derive  a  conclusion  as  to  the  authenticity 
of  a  document  or  the  truth  of  a  narrative,  it  is  as  if  one  were  to  draw, 
from  the  moral  impression  made  upon  him  by  the  "  (Edipus  Tyrannus  " 
of  Sophocles  or  Shakspeare's  "  Hamlet,"  objective  and  positive  conclu- 
sions as  to  the  actual  history  of  the  city  of  Thebes  or  the  kingdom  of 
Denmark.  The  grandeur  of  the  figure  of  Abraham  or  the  psychological 
beauty  of  the  drama  of  Eden  no  more  proves  the  historicity  of  the  nar- 
ratives of  Genesis  than  the  pathos  of  the  farewell  of  Hector  and  Androm- 
ache or  the  prayer  of  Priam  at  the  knees  of  Achilles  proves  that  of 
Homer's  Iliad.  They  are  things  of  different  orders,  between  which 
there  is  no  common  measure,  and  the  questions  arising  in  each  order  must 
be  solved  by  essentially  different  processes. 

Finally,  the  ecclesiastic  theory  of  Scripture  is  completed  and  summed 
up  in  the  enumeration  of  mystic  qualities  or  virtues  of  Scripture  (affec- 


PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC  DOGMAS  183 

tiones  scripture?  sacra)  as  Catholic  dogma  in  the  marks  or  notes  of  the 
Church.  The  two  principal  attributes  of  the  Bible,  to  which  it  is  easy 
to  refer  all  the  others,  are  infallibility,  which  bases  its  absolute  authority 
on  a  fact  of  doctrine,  and  efficacy,  that  is,  its  power  to  create  and  foster 
the  new  life  in  the  soul.  But  this  is  not  to  be  limited  to  a  natural  effi- 
cacy such  as  that  of  every  good  book.  What  our  theologians  claim 
is  a  supernatural  influence  exerted  by  the  Bible,  an  influence  which  does 
not  consist  in  its  moral  power  to  persuade  or  instruct,  but  in  the  creative 
power  of  the  Spirit,  immanent  in  a  metaphysical  and  essential  way  in 
the  biblical  text  itself.  The  Bible  is  the  mysterious  incarnation  of  the 
Spirit.  The  Word  was  not  only  made  flesh,  it  was  made  Scripture;  it 
is  in  the  sacred  volume  as  Christ  is  in  the  Eucharist,  as  the  soul  is  in 
the  body,  and  the  reading  of  the  Bible  acts  divinely  upon  the  soul  after 
the  manner  of  the  sacrament. 

V 

Protestant  and  Catholic  Dogmas  of  Authority  Compared 

THE  two  dogmas  were  in  repeated  collision  during  nearly  two  centuries ; 
but  beneath  the  obvious  differences  and  through  the  most  obstinate  con- 
troversies there  were  underlying  analogies  continually  drawing  them 
together  and  tending  toward  their  reconciliation. 

The  two  religious  systems  are  of  one  family;  both  are  systems  of 
authority.  They  have  the  same  starting  point,  and,  at  least  theoreti- 
cally, are  constructed  upon  the  same  deductive  model. 

Their  common  starting  point  is  the  notion  of  an  external  divine 
revelation,  consisting  in  a  doctrine  or  an  institution  decreed  by  God  and 
supernaturally  communicated  to  men  as  an  external  law  to  command 
the  intelligence  and  the  will.  That  man  had  need  of  an  infallible 
authority  and  that  this  authority,  with  the  absolute  submission  which 
it  implies,  constituted  the  very  substance  of  religion,  was  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  one  of  the  traditional  axioms  which  are  never 


184  PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC  DOGMAS 

discussed,  one  of  those  idol  ideas  of  which  Bacon  speaks,  which  tyrannise 
over  the  best  minds  until  the  day  when  men  gain  courage  to  examine 
them. 

On  both  sides  men  reasoned  in  the  same  way,  with  the  same  a  priori 
deduction  from  the  same  syllogisms.  It  was  not  enough  that  God  should 
give  his  revelation  to  man.  The  gift  would  have  been  useless  and  vain 
if  it  had  not  been  received  entire  and  without  alloy.  God,  therefore, 
would  surely  provide  that  the  heavenly  stream  from  the  fountain  of 
salvation  should  not  be  corrupted  by  its  course  through  the  human  chan- 
nels by  which  it  must  be  distributed  among  men  down  to  the  last  human 
generation.  These  necessary  channels  are  oral  tradition  and  Scripture. 
Both  must  be  canonised  and  made  sacred.  The  Catholics  had  made  haste 
to  do  so,  and  the  Protestants,  unable  to  deny  that  the  Word  of  God  had 
first  been  preached  and  propagated  by  the  human  voice  before  being 
written,  could  not  but  canonise  oral  tradition,  at  least  in  its  first  period, 
in  the  very  fact  of  insisting  upon  all  that  was  surest  and  most  stable  in 
Scripture.  So  far  the  two  systems  went  hand  in  hand. 

Here,  however,  they  parted;  one  attached  itself  to  the  tradition  of 
the  Church,  to  which  it  subordinated  the  Scriptures,  the  other  to  the 
Scriptures,  to  which  it  subordinated  tradition.  But  on  neither  side  was 
disavowal  complete  or  fundamental.  The  Protestants  preserved  the 
symbols  of  the  ancient  Church  and  the  decrees  of  ecumenical  councils, 
and  defended  them — witness  the  stake  of  Servetus — with  an  intolerance 
as  great  as  that  of  the  Catholics  of  their  time.  The  Catholics  no  more 
rejected  Scripture  than  the  Protestants ;  they  simply  claimed,  as  Bossuet 
said  to  Claude,  that  the  Church  understood  and  interpreted  it  better  than 
the  individual  sense  of  a  few  doctors  or  a  few  believers.  Upon  miracles, 
prophecy,  inspiration,  the  Incarnation,  expiation,  the  Trinity,  upon  the 
most  important  dogmas  of  the  Christian  religion,  to  the  general  Chris- 
tian consciousness  of  that  epoch,  the  harmony  between  the  two  parties 
was  complete  and  profound.  How  then  shall  we  be  surprised  when 
great  and  sincere  spirits  like  Bossuet,  Leibnitz,  and  many  others  esteemed 


PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC  DOGMAS  186 

a  reconciliation  as  not  only  desirable,  but  possible,  and  bent  their  best 
efforts  to  bring  it  to  pass?  There  was  a  difference  of  quantity,  not  of 
quality,  between  the  two  systems.  They  might,  then,  hope  to  reduce  it 
to  nothing  by  reciprocal  concessions. 

The  peacemakers  were  mistaken,  it  is  true;  they  did  not  perceive, 
under  Catholic  forms  which  were  persistent  in  Protestantism,  the  new 
principle,  introduced  into  the  world  by  the  Reformation,  which  was  ob- 
scurely working  in  the  Protestant  consciousness  and  bringing  to  ship- 
wreck all  these  benevolent  attempts  at  conciliation.  But  if  one  takes 
into  account  simply  the  doctrinal  system  of  orthodoxy  of  the  time,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  admit  the  evident  analogies  of  thought  and  reasoning. 
The  Protestants  were  led  to  establish  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures 
along  the  same  path  by  which  the  Catholics  established  that  of  the 
Church.  The  Holy  Spirit,  who  for  the  latter  was  incarnated  and  im- 
prisoned in  tradition  and  the  hierarchy,  was  for  the  former  likewise 
incarnated  and  imprisoned  in  the  letter  of  the  Bible.  From  both  start- 
ing-points the  same  result  was  reached,  the  constitution  of  an  external 
authority  regarded  as  divine,  for  which  implicit  faith  and  unreserved 
submission  were  imperatively  claimed  in  the  name  of  the  divine  majesty 
itself,  whatever  the  Bible  might  teach  on  any  of  its  pages,  or  the  Church 
decree  at  any  moment  of  its  history. 

The  Catholic  is  bound  to  believe  in  the  Immaculate  Conception  of 
the  Virgin,  not  because  he  is  convinced  that  this  doctrine  is  true,  but 
because  the  Church  has  so  ordained ;  in  like  manner  the  Protestant  ought 
to  believe  in  demoniacal  possession  and  in  the  mythological  or  anthropo- 
morphic figure  of  Satan,  because  the  Bible  so  teaches.  In  both  cases 
Christian  dogmas  are  drawn  from  these  two  primordial  dogmas  which 
include  them  all,  by  the  way  of  authority  and  deductive  form,  the  short- 
est and  most  simple  of  all  logical  forms.  In  both  cases  Christianity, 
enjoined  by  an  exterior  law,  renounces  its  original  character,  that  of 
being  the  inspiration  of  the  conscience,  a  free  and  living  soul-power 
(8u'vu/x«  Oeav),  and  descends  to  the  rank  of  a  legal  religion. 


186  PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC  DOGMAS 

To  turn  to  those  things  in  which  they  are  unlike.  The  Catholic 
system  finds  divine  infallibility  in  an  admirably  organised  social  insti- 
tution, with  its  supreme  head,  the  Pope;  the  Protestant  system  finds 
infallibility  in  a  book.  And  from  whatever  point  of  view  we  examine 
the  two  systems,  the  advantage  is  incontestably  on  the  Catholic  side. 

The  Church  has  this  first  superiority  over  the  Bible:  that  it  is  a 
social  organism,  alive,  contemporaneous,  flexible,  able  to  deal  with  all 
the  new  questions,  to  develop  itself  skilfully  without  inconsistency,  thanks 
to  the  principle  of  inspiration  which  it  carries  within  itself.     It  can  show 
itself  tolerant  of  all  that  it  cannot  prevent,  can  close  its  eyes  to  all  that 
it  is  best  not  to  see ;  in  short,  in  ruling  the  minds  of  men  it  can  conduct 
itself  with  all  the  freedom,  prudence,  and  patience  of  governments  which 
are  sure  that  time  is  working  for  them.     The  Bible,  on  the  contrary,  is 
a  document  of  the  past,  a  book  whose  form  and  ideas  are  those  of  a 
certain  date,  and  respond  to  a  definite  degree  of  culture  and  state  of 
civilisation.     Let  no  one  object  to  this,  that  its  spirit  is  a  spirit  of  life. 
The  question  here  is  not  of  the  Christian  spirit,  which  is  indeed  inde- 
pendent of  the  letter  of  Scripture,  but  of  the  letter  itself,  which  Prot- 
estant orthodoxy  holds  to  be  the  pure  and  very  Word  of  God,  to  which 
it  would  bind  its  adherents  as  to  a  divine  law,  the  eternal  expression  of 
the  truth.     This  being  so,  we  surely  must  feel  that  the  system  of  the 
infallible  authority  of  a  book  is  much  less  easy  to  maintain,  much  more 
difficult  to  practise,  than  that  of  the  infallible  authority  of  a  Church. 
In  fact,  if  Protestantism  were  indeed  the  intellectual  tyranny  of  a  book, 
we  should  not  say  that  it  had  not  long  to  live;  we  should  say  that  for 
the  past  two  centuries  it  had  ceased  to  live,  instead  of  being  to-day  the 
religious  form  of  those  peoples  who  are  most  advanced  in  scientific  cul- 
ture and  in  Christian  civilisation. 

In  the  second  place,  the  Catholic  system  has  much  more  grandeur 
than  the  other.  It  is  one  thing  to  reason  on  the  value  of  a  book,  and 
another  to  create,  through  eighteen  centuries  of  history,  by  an  uninter- 
rupted series  of  efforts  and  conflicts,  a  religious  empire  like  that  of 


PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC  DOGMAS  187 

Rome.  This  system  is  the  work  of  bishops,  monks,  Popes,  politics,  quite 
as  much  as  of  the  doctors.  It  was  born  and  grew  up  in  the  very  thick 
of  the  human  conflict,  rendering  services  to  modern  humanity  and  bring- 
ing upon  it  evils  and  dangers  alike  extraordinary.  Without  the  slight- 
est doubt,  as  we  have  shown,  the  dogmatic  and  religious  claims  of 
Catholicism  are  fictions  or  legends ;  but  the  Catholic  Church  is  assuredly 
a  political  reality  with  which  the  potentates  of  the  time  cannot  refuse 
to  reckon,  and  one  of  the  grandest  spectacles  in  history  is  the  slow 
growth  of  the  power  of  the  Popes  and  the  formation  of  that  wonderful 
and  terrible  governmental  machine  which  extends  over  more  than  one- 
third  of  Christendom. 

What  is  the  Protestant  system  beside  all  this?  A  tissue  of  abstrac- 
tions peaceably  chained  together  by  a  logical  link  in  the  closets  of  doc- 
tors or  within  the  precincts  of  the  Schools ;  a  system  which  has  never 
succeeded  in  establishing  itself  seriously  either  in  the  Churches  or  in 
lay  society,  an  artificial  and  contradictory  work,  lacking  at  once  basis 
and  conclusion,  destroyed  by  the  very  Reformation  principle  whence  men 
have  sought  to  deduce  it.  What  use  is  there,  indeed,  in  postulating  the 
divine  inspiration  of  an  ancient  text  and  its  infallibility  to  an  iota  if  at 
the  present  time  this  text,  written  in  languages  long  dead,  is  accessible 
only  to  a  few  learned  philologues;  if  the  Christian  people  must  con- 
tent themselves  with  versions  in  the  vulgar  tongues  which  are  neither 
infallible  nor  perfect,  or  with  the  words  of  preachers  subject  to  all  human 
frailties?  If  errors  and  imperfections  in  the  sermons  or  in  modern 
versions  of  the  Bible  do  not  prevent  souls  from  attaining  salvation,  why 
should  we  insist  that  if  they  should  exist  in  the  original  text,  the  text 
had  not,  and  could  not  have  had,  the  same  salutary  virtue? 

The  Protestant  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  is  not  only 
inconceivable  to  thought — it  is  also  useless  in  fact. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

THE    PEOGBESSIVE    DISSOLUTION    OF    THE    DOGMA 
I 

The  Basis  of  the  Dogma  Displaced 

THE  Protestant  system  was  barely  completed  when  its  fragility  became 
evident.  An  attempt  was  made  to  strengthen  it  by  altering  its  basis; 
but  this  only  hastened  its  destruction. 

Its  basis,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  inward  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
certifying  to  the  Christian  soul  that  the  Scriptures  were  "  the  Word 
of  God."  But  everywhere  men  felt  a  blind  desire .  for  an  external 
authority,  well  defined  and  strong,  which  they  might  set  over  against  the 
Catholic  Church.  The  inward  witness,  belonging  to  the  subjective  moral 
order,  often  obscure,  uncertain,  and  fluctuating,  could  not  set  up  such 
an  authority  without  doing  violence  to  its  own  nature.  How  was  it 
possible  to  make  the  Holy  Spirit  the  judge  of  controversies  over  ques- 
tions of  text,  canon,  historic  criticism,  without  making  it  an  oracle  of 
ignorance  and  fanaticism? 

The  Arminians  and  Socinians  intervened  here.  By  what  signs,  they 
asked,  can  you  make  sure  that  the  voice  which  you  take  for  that  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  not  a  vain  imagination,  the  echo  of  your  own  prejudices, 
or  even  the  suggestion  of  a  spirit  of  blindness  and  error?  *  If  you 
intrench  yourself  in  your  personal  conviction,  justifying  it  by  no  reason, 
could  not  the  Jew  say  of  his  Bible,  the  Mohammedan  of  his  Koran,  all 
that  you  say  of  your  sacred  Scriptures?  These  are  comprised  of  dif- 
ferent parts  of  very  unequal  value ;  are  all  their  pages  equally  edifying  ? 
Do  they  all  awaken  in  the  Christian  consciousness  the  immediate  assur- 
ance that  they  proceed  from  God?  Are  not  those  who  believe  themselves 

*  Episcopius,  "  Inst  Theol.,"  Pars  iv.,  sect.  1,  c.  5,  Amsterdam,  ed.  1650,  p.  335. 
P.  Bayle,  Comra.  phil.  upon  the  words,  "  Compel  them  to  come  in." 

188 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  DOGMA  DISPLACED  189 

to  have  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  within  themselves,  like  a  super- 
natural voice,  the  victims  of  a  very  common  psychological  illusion,  which 
a  little  reflection  and  analysis  would  at  once  dissipate?1 

Those  who  first  advanced  these  objections  had  no  desire  to  destroy  the 
dogma.  Quite  the  contrary ;  they  believed  themselves  to  be  reconstruct- 
ing it  upon  a  firmer  basis.  To  establish  the  divine  authority  of  the 
Scriptures,  they  said,  we  need  resort  neither  to  the  external  decisions  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  whose  traditions  are  without  authority,  nor  to  the 
inward  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  is  illusory.  The  two  modes 
of  demonstration  are  equally  supernatural  and  irrational;  it  is  enough 
to  have  recourse  to  history.  We  can  prove  the  authenticity  of  the  bibli- 
cal books  by  historic  testimony  and  purely  rational  argument ;  from  their 
authenticity  we  may  deduce  the  truth  of  the  miraculous  history  which 
they  contain,  and  in  this  history  we  find  the  divine  warrant  of  their  origin. 
In  terms  of  the  schools  this  is  to  found  the  fides  d'wina  of  the  Bible,  its 
divine  authority,  upon  the  fides  humana,  the  veracity  of  historic  wit- 
nesses.2 

This  new  theory,  the  direct  reverse  of  seventeenth-century  ortho- 
doxy, has  become  the  current  orthodoxy  of  our  own  time. 

The  chain  of  reasoning  is  as  follows:  the  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, especially  the  Four  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  are  by  the 
authors  whose  names  they  bear.  Of  this  a  very  well-grounded  tradition, 
going  back  to  their  time,  leaves  no  room  for  doubt.  These  writers  were 
able  to  know  the  truth  about  Christ,  and  they  -were  willing  to  tell  it. 
They  were  able:  for  they  had  been  the  companions  of  his  life,  the  wit- 
nesses of  his  acts,  and  the  hearers  of  his  discourses.  They  were  willing ; 
since  to  suppose  otherwise  is  absurd.  Therefore,  the  miracles  of  Jesus, 
and  especially  his  resurrection  from  the  dead,  are  established  facts.  But 
such  facts  could  not  have  taken  place  without  the  supernatural  inter- 

1  Reimarus,  in  the  Fragment,  "  Unmoeglichkeit  einer  Offenbarung,"  p.  39,  118. 
1  Episcopius,  ibid.    Limborch,  "  Theol.  christ.,"  I.  4,  6 ;  F.  Socinus,  "  De  Auctprit 
Sacr.  Scripture." 


190  THE  BASIS  OF  THE  DOGMA  DISPLACED 

vention  of  God.  God  himself,  therefore,  has  attested  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  is  his  Son  and  that  his  teaching  came  from  heaven.  That 
they  might  receive  it,  guard  it,  and  transmit  it  in  its  original  purity, 
the  apostles  received  the  Spirit  of  God,  who  kept  their  tongues  and 
pens  from  all  error.  Add  to  all  these  miracles  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecies,  and  you  have  established  by  exterior  material  proof  the 
divine  authority  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

Thus,  it  was  thought,  the  dogma  of  authority  was  saved.  The  con- 
trary very  soon  became  evident.  It  was  not  necessary  to  possess  great 
scientific  acumen  in  order  to  perceive  the  insufficiency  of  the  deduction 
and  realise  the  fragility  of  the  links  of  which  it  is  composed.  How  could 
it  be  hoped  to  gain  anything  by  putting  the  testimony  of  men  in  the 
place  of  the  divine  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  What  is  man,  that  he 
should  be  the  sufficient  security  for  God?  The  famous  dilemma  "  neither 
deceivers  nor  deceived  "  is  so  weak  and  so  loosely  constructed  that  the 
whole  reality  of  human  history,  a  tissue  of  prejudices,  illusions,  uncon- 
scious errors,  ignorances,  and  preconceptions,  easily  passes  through  it. 

Then  arose  historic  criticism  with  Louis  Cappel,  Spinoza,  Richard 
Simon,  Jean  Leclerc,  Grotius,  and  many  others;  it  soon  showed  that 
nothing  is  more  obscure,  complex,  almost  insoluble,  than  those  questions 
of  the  date  and  authorship  of  the  biblical  books,  most  of  which  are  anony- 
mous. And  were  the  solution  of  these  problems  of  literary  history  easier 
than  it  is,  how  overlook  the  fact  that  historic  knowledge,  by  its  very 
nature,  never  arrives  at  absolute  certainty,  but  simply  at  a  higher  or 
lower  degree  of  likelihood  and  probability;  that  therefore  there  is  an 
incompatibility  between  it  and  religious  faith,  which  demands  perfect 
certainty?  How  should  the  latter  be  subordinated  to  the  former? 
Where  shall  the  assurance  of  salvation  be  found,  if  salvation  depends 
upon  the  result  of  my  critical  researches?  What  shall  simple  believers, 
ignorant  Christians,  do,  if  their  peace  of  conscience  depends  upon  ques- 
tions which  the  learned  never  cease  to  discuss,  and  which  they  them- 
selves cannot  understand,  much  less  answer? 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM  191 

We  hear  Lessing  rebelling  against  the  pedantic  conditions  imposed 
upon  Christian  faith :  "  Cease  trying  to  suspend  in  your  spider-webs 
the  weight  of  an  eternal  destiny  of  joy  or  torment !  Did  the  old  scholas- 
ticism ever  inflict  graver  wounds  upon  religion  than  this  historic  exe- 
gesis? It  cannot  be  true  that  a  misstatement  or  delusion  can  be  found 
in  the  biblical  writers !  It  cannot  be  true  that  among  the  thousands  and 
.Lousands  of  things  which  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  a  single  imaginary 
or  erroneous  thing  can  be  found!  But  if  this  possibility  exists,  what 
becomes  of  all  your  deductions  ?  Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  leave 
these  new  weapons  of  yours  to  rust  in  their  arsenals?  How,  indeed,  can 
accidental  facts  become  necessary  truths,  unless  they  are  the  expression 
of  moral  or  religious  verities  already  existing  in  the  human  understand- 
ing? Between  history  and  metaphysics  there  is  an  impassable  gulf. 
You  present  to  me  the  miracle  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ.  I 
may  very  probably  be  unable  to  refute  the  accounts  given  by  the  biblical 
writings.  But  what  conclusion  will  you  draw  from  my  inability,  which 
may  quite  as  probably  arise  from  my  weakness  and  the  incompleteness 
of  the  documents  as  from  the  truth  of  your  thesis  and  the  force  of  your 
arguments  ?  "  l 

Things  have  so  far  changed,  indeed,  that  the  miracles  and  prophecies 
which  then  constituted  the  great  proof  of  the  biblical  revelation  are  now 
that  part  of  revelation  which  most  needs  to  be  proved.  The  majority 
of  Christians  in  our  day  believe  in  the  miracles  of  Jesus  because  of  his 
Gospel,  not  in  the  Gospel  because  of  his  miracles. 


n 

The  Progress  of  Biblical  Criticism 

IT  was  nothing  less  than  a  revolution  when  the  biblical  question  was  thus 
carried  into  the  domain  of  history.     By  degrees  men  came  to  study  those 

1  Lessing,  "Sendschreiben:  Ueber  den  Beweis  des  Geistes  und  der  Kraft,"  1777. 


192  THE  PROGRESS  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM 

books  in  the  same  way  as  other  documents  of  antiquity,  and  to  apply 
to  them  the  same  rules  of  criticism.  Historical  and  literary  problems 
presented  themselves  which  they  were  morally  compelled  to  resolve  by 
the  same  methods.  As  soon  as  they  gave  themselves  to  this  investigation 
with  some  degree  of  freedom  they  at  once  discovered  in  the  sacred  authors 
many  things  till  then  obscured  by  the  golden  halo  with  which  they  were 
surrounded;  things  which  it  became  more  and  more  difficult  to  square 
with  the  time-honoured  theory  of  a  supernatural  and  divine  origin. 

Comparing,  for  example,  the  two  narratives  of  the  early  life  of 
David,  which  we  find  in  the  First  Book  of  Samuel,  Bayle  made  the  reflec- 
tion that,  if  we  were  to  find  such  a  lack  of  sequence,  such  repetitions  and 
contradictions,  in  Thucydides  or  Titus  Livius,  we  should  not  hesitate 
to  infer  some  grave  alteration  and  disarrangement  of  tl^e  text.  In  vain 
did  he  prudently  add  that  such  suspicions  should  be  carefully  guarded 
against  in  the  case  of  the  Bible.  Such  rhetorical  precautions  seemed  a 
cruel  irony ;  they  neither  satisfied  anyone  nor  gave  a  check  to  research. 
How  shall  criticism  be  refuted  when  it  still  more  boldly  affirms  that,  from 
a  moral  point  of  view,  an  action  which  is  bad  in  the  sight  of  eternal  law 
is  always  bad,  even  when  performed  by  a  man  who  is  endowed  with  divine 
inspiration? 

The  biblical  writers  were  very  far  from  claiming  the  prerogative 
of  supernatural  infallibility.  In  the  preface  to  his  Gospel  Luke  recom- 
mends himself  to  his  readers  like  any  ordinary  historian,  by  the  zeal  and 
care  with  which  he  has  investigated  facts  and  marshalled  them  in  his 
narrative  in  the  best  order  and  with  the  greatest  exactitude.  Why 
should  we  not  bring  other  documents  to  our  aid  in  judging  of  the  rela- 
tive success  of  his  attempt?  The  Apostle  Paul  exhorts  the  Christians 
of  Thessalonica  and  Corinth  to  judge  for  themselves  of  what  he  writes 
to  them,  to  prove  all  things.  If  in  certain  places  he  appeals  to  a  com- 
mandment of  Christ,  in  others  he  declares  that  he  is  giving  only  his 
personal  opinion,  which  he  carefully  distinguishes  from  the  commands 
of  the  Lord.  It  is  true  that  at  times  he  speaks  of  revelations  received 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM  193 

when  in  an  ecstatic  state,  but  he  never  gives  it  to  be  understood  that 
God  himself  inspires  his  words,  his  reasonings,  his  citations,  or  the  ideas 
that  came  spontaneously  from  the  natural  action  of  his  mind  or  the 
memory  of  past  experiences.  In  his  style,  his  polemic,  his  way  of  laying 
down  and  defending  his  theses,  the  originality  of  his  character  and  his 
entire  personality  are  portrayed  in  vivid  lines. 

Very  often,  too,  the  sacred  writers  express  themselves  conjecturally 
or  in  an  uncertain  manner  concerning  things  upon  which  the  Holy  Spirit 
might  and  could  have  given  them  entire  certainty  and  precise  informa- 
tion. With  the  progress  of  grammatical  exegesis,  and  in  the  degree 
with  which  age-long  prejudices  were  dissipated,  it  was  impossible  not 
to  perceive  important  discrepancies ;  for  example,  between  the  Books  of 
Kings  and  Chronicles,  between  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  between  the  four 
Gospels,  or  again,  between  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  that  of 
James  concerning  justification  by  faith.  Finally,  how  can  the  theory  of 
verbal  inspiration  be  reconciled  with  the  fact  that  the  New  Testament 
quotations  from  the  Old  very  often  do  not  correspond  with  the  Hebrew 
text  and  sometimes  contradict  it?  The  prophet  Micah,  for  example, 
had  said :  "  But  thou,  Bethlehem,  too  small  to  be  one  of  the  branches 
of  Judah,"  etc.  But  Matthew  wrote :  "  And  you,  Bethlehem,  land  of 
Judah,  are  in  no  wise  least  among  the  princes  of  Judah."  Again,  we 
see  James,  in  his  discourse  reported  in  Acts  xv.  16  ff.,  citing  Amos 
ix.  11,  according  to  the  Septuagint  version,  but  in  complete  contra- 
diction of  the  Hebrew  text.  The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
following  the  same  Alexandrian  version,  makes  the  Psalmist  say  (xl.  7) 
"  a  body  didst  thou  prepare  for  me,"  while  in  the  Hebrew  we  read, 
"  Thou  hast  digged  (or  opened)  mine  ears."  All  these  observations, 
of  small  importance  in  the  natural  order  of  things,  were  mortal  wounds 
to  the  doctrine  of  a  supernatural  verbal  inspiration.  The  theory  of 
divine  accommodation  to  human  errors  and  passions  served  for  a  while 
to  excuse  the  deceptions  and  wholesale  exterminations  so  often  attributed 
to  the  command  of  God.  But  it  was  impossible  long  to  pay  men  with 


194  THE  PROGRESS  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM 

this  counterfeit  coin.  As  for  certain  biblical  passages  which  seem  to 
claim  divine  inspiration  for  the  sacred  books  or  for  their  authors,  not 
to  say  that  their  sense  is  forced  to  distortion,  can  we  not  perceive  the 
circle  in  which  those  are  shut  up  who  would  try  to  prove  the  inspiration 
of  the  Bible  by  statements  of  the  Bible  itself? 

Textual  criticism  was  not  less  fatal  to  the  dogma  than  exegesis. 
Searching  out  and  collecting  the  manuscripts,  collating  the  writings  of 
the  Fathers  and  the  ancient  versions,  scholars  accumulated  various  read- 
ings on  the  margins  of  the  New  Testament,  demonstrating  that,  though 
the  sacred  text  had  been  most  piously  preserved,  it  had  by  no  means 
escaped  the  accidents  that  befall  human  things;  that  differences  had 
accumulated  in  proportion  as  copies  had  been  made;  that  it  was,  there- 
fore, often  necessary  to  be  content  with  conjectures  and  probability; 
and  that  since  the  pure,  original  text  could  not  be  restored  with  any 
degree  of  certainty,  the  doctrine  of  verbal  inspiration,  usque  ad  voces 
et  consones,  no  longer  applied  to  anything,  and  had  become  useless. 

At  the  same  time  the  critical  examination  of  the  tradition  as  to  the 
date,  origin,  and  authorship  of  the  books  of  the  Bible  showed  its  mistakes 
and  untrustworthiness.  It  was  felt  that  this  entire  subject  needed  to 
be  revised.  Hobbes,  Spinoza,  Richard  Simon,  Jean  Leclerc,  certainly 
did  not  discover  the  truth  as  to  the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch,  but 
they  perceived  that  a  diversity  of  elements  had  contributed  to  it,  and 
clearly  saw  that  instead  of  deriving  from  Moses,  the  earliest  redaction 
of  these  books  was  far  later.  This  being  the  case,  the  books  were  anony- 
mous, and  it  was  impossible  to  say  to  whom  the  supernatural  prerogative 
of  inspiration  was  to  be  attributed.  The  same  was  the  case  with  Job, 
which,  according  to  Leclerc,  has  no  other  truth  than  that  which  poetic 
verisimilitude  demands  in  a  tragedy.  The  prophets  may  have  had 
visions  and  divine  revelations.  But  their  discourses  were  put  into  writ- 
ing by  themselves  or  their  disciples  after  having  been  spoken,  and  we 
possess  only  fragments  of  them.  Esther  and  Judith  "  are  stories  told 
at  the  writers'  pleasure."  Nowhere  do  we  find  any  indication  of  verbal 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM  195 

inspiration,  and  it  must  be  added  that  none  of  these  writers,  for  the 
most  part  unknown,  dreamed  of  claiming  it.  Piety,  natural  ability, 
and  religious  patriotism  are  a  sufficient  explanation  of  works  in  which 
things  good  and  bad,  shadow  and  light,  are  mingled  together. 

Criticism  approached  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  with  more 
timidity.  Nevertheless  the  freedom  of  judgment  which  Luther  showed 
with  regard  to  several  of  them  was  not  entirely  extinct.  Here  Richard 
Simon  and  certain  Jesuit  scholars  opened  a  new  path,  which  others  soon 
followed. 

Simon  showed  clearly  that  the  titles  put  at  the  head  of  the  Gospels 
and  the  Acts  to  make  known  their  authors  are  a  late  addition,  and  there- 
fore not  exempt  from  investigation;  he  maintained  that  Matthew  had 
originally  been  written  in  Hebrew,  and  that  we  possess  only  a  Greek 
translation  whose  fidelity  can  be  guaranteed  by  the  Church  alone.  He 
very  pertinently  discussed  the  authenticity  of  the  last  twelve  verses  of 
Mark,  disproved  that  of  the  passage  in  1  John  v.  7  about  the  three 
witnesses,  denied  that  the  Epistle  of  the  Hebrews  was  from  Paul's  own 
pen.  In  short,  he  revived,  though  with  his  habitual  prudence,  all  the 
uncertainties  and  differences  of  opinion  which  we  find  among  the  Church 
Fathers  as  to  the  list  of  canonical  and  non-canonical  books,  the  homo- 
logoumena,  the  antilegomena,  and  the  apocrypha.  No  doubt  he  strove 
to  reconcile  all  these  literary  facts  with  the  reality  of  inspiration,  but 
he  profoundly  modified  the  idea  of  inspiration.  He  was  especially  fond 
of  using  it  as  a  weapon  against  the  Protestant  dogma,  and  to  show  that, 
after  all,  the  only  basis  for  the  divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures  was 
the  present  authority  of  the  Church.  But  in  that  case  what  does  the 
latter  rest  upon?  Catholics  and  Protestants,  equally  embarrassed 
before  the  witness  of  history,  can  escape  its  testimony  only  by  shutting 
themselves  up  in  vicious  circles.  Jean  Leclerc  developed  the  criticism 
of  Richard  Simon,  and  Semler,  treading  in  their  footsteps,  went  still 
further  along  the  path  they  had  opened.  All  questions  were  raised,  and 
men  began  to  get  glimpses  through  the  veil  of  dogmatics  of  an  entirely 


196  THE  PROGRESS  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM 

new  historic  reality,  which  our  own  age  was  at  last  to  bring  to  the  open 
light  of  day. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  criticism  the  dogmatic  authority  of  the 
Canon  of  Holy  Scripture  also  vanished  away.  The  notion  of  the  "  Word 
of  God "  was  changed.  The  two  notions,  Canon  and  divine  Word, 
parted  company,  since  they  no  longer  coincided.  The  English  Deists, 
Tindal  especially,  strained  every  nerve  to  show  how  little,  or  how  ill, 
certain  books  of  the  Bible  answer,  either  by  their  origin  or  their  con- 
tents, to  the  idea  which  we  cannot  but  form  of  the  Word  of  God.  How 
was  it  possible  to  maintain  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  as  equal 
to  that  of  the  New,  approve  equally  the  sanguinary  intolerance  of  an 
Elijah  and  the  gentleness  of  Jesus,  consider  as  pleasing  to  God,  or  even 
commanded  by  him,  the  cruelties  of  Joshua  and  David,  the  falsehoods 
of  Abraham,  the  schemes  of  Jacob,  the  thefts  of  which  the  Hebrews  in 
their  flight  were  guilty  with  regard  to  the  Egyptians,  etc. !  Was  it  not 
evident  that,  though  the  Bible  might  contain  the  Word  of  God,  it  also 
contained  other  things  in  no  wise  especially  divine;  for  example,  docu- 
ments of  national  history,  the  legislation  of  a  long-outgrown  religion 
of  rites  and  statutes,  and  fragments  of  a  literature  which  has  no  specifi- 
cally religious  character,  like  the  Song  of  Songs,  Ecclesiastes,  the  story 
of  Judith,  or  the  heroic  songs  of  ancient  Israel? 

Finally,  if  we  discard  the  authority  of  the  Church,  how  can  the 
present  limits  of  the  Canon  be  justified?  From  the  point  of  view  of  his- 
tory, can  it  be  explained  why  the  Son  of  Sirach  is  excluded  and  Eccle- 
siastes admitted?  Who  will  precisely  define  the  boundary  which  sep- 
arates the  canonical  from  the  apocryphal  books?  Are  not  the  Book  of 
Daniel  and  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  supposititious?  If  we  build 
upon  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  can  we  maintain  with  sincerity  that 
its  testimony  never  falls  short  of  and  never  overpasses  the  limits  of  the 
traditional  collection  in  use  in  the  Churches  ?  * 

Orthodox  dogmatics  might  show  itself  indifferent  to  questions  relat- 
ing to  the  human  origin  of  this  or  that  biblical  writing;  it  rested  its 

1  Appendix  LXXV. 


CONCESSIONS  AND  COMPROMISES  197 

faith  upon  God  alone,  the  sole  and  original  author  of  the  Bible,  and  God 
could  as  well  make  use  of  an  unknown  writer,  or  one  far  removed  from 
the  facts  he  relates,  as  of  an  apostle  or  an  eye-witness.  But  the  Ar- 
minian  theology,  which  claimed  to  found  the  fides  divina  upon  the  fides 
humana,  that  is  to  say,  the  divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures  upon  the 
historic  veracity  of  the  authors,  could  not  enjoy  the  same  serenity.  If 
the  history  of  Jesus  was  in  question,  it  could  not  be  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  it  whether  its  authority  was  the  work  of  a  compiler  of  popular 
traditions  or  the  authentic  memoirs  of  the  Apostle  Matthew.  The 
Fourth  Gospel  had  not  equal  weight  according  as  it  was  held  to  be  a 
writing  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee  or  of  a  theologian  of  the  Alexandrian 
school.  Thus  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  influence  historic  criticism  and 
exegesis,  with  their  disconcerting  conclusions,  were  likely  to  have  upon  t 
this  theology. 

m 

Concessions  and  Compromises. — The  Triumph  of  Rationalism 

To  say  truth,  since  the  sixteenth  century  there  have  always  been  men 
of  moderate  spirit  who  have  made  a  stand  against  the  logic  of  orthodoxy, 
and  more  or  less  accurately  limited  the  divine  revelation  to  matters  which 
concern  the  salvation  of  the  human  race.  The  Arminian  theory  espe- 
cially made  concessions  of  this  sort  necessary,  and,  once  entered  upon 
this  path,  they  found  it  becoming  ever  wider  and  wider.1 

Hugo  Grotius  set  the  example;  being  one  of  the  creators  of  gram- 
matical exegesis,  he  was  led  by  it  to  make  distinctions  between  the  canoni- 
cal books  and  to  note  degrees  in  their  inspiration.  If  inspiration  was 
necessary  to  the  prophets  it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  necessary  to 
the  historians.  It  sufficed  that  the  authors  of  the  historic  books  of  the 
Bible  should  be  of  good  faith  and  profound  piety.  Inspiration  was 
therefore  limited  by  Grotius  to  the  prophets,  the  apostolic  revelations, 
and  the  words  of  Jesus,  which  are  the  words  of  God  himself.  For  all 
1  Episcopus,  "  Instit.  Christ,"  I-  *»  10;  IV.  1,  4. 


198  CONCESSIONS  AND  COMPROMISES 

the  rest  the  miraculous  aid  of  the  Spirit  of  God  was  needless;  just  judg- 
.        ment,  scrupulous  honesty,  and  the  love  of  truth  were  sufficient.1 

Following  Grotius,  Jean  Leclerc  was  bolder  still.  Holding  more 
strictly  to  history,  he  limited  inspiration  to  those  prophecies,  command- 
ments, and  doctrines  of  the  Bible  which  were  in  express  terms  attributed 
to  God  himself.  Yet  he  claimed  the  right  to  examine,  to  correct,  to 
doubt,  all  parts  of  the  Bible.2  It  was  a  singular  position.  From  this 
point  of  view  there  were  inspiration  and  divine  authority  only  where  the 
miracle  of  a  direct  supernatural  communication  had  occurred. 

The  permanent  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  religious  soul  in 
general,  and  in  the  Christian  soul  in  particular,  was  denied  or  ignored. 
Thenceforth  there  remained  only  the  violent  and  abrupt  antithesis  of  two 
reciprocally  exclusive  terms :  the  authority  of  revelation  and  the  natural 
reason.  Where  one  was  established  the  other  must  submit  and  be 
silent. 

The  critical  reason,  however,  continually  gaining  ground,  the  field 
of  revelation,  like  that  of  miracle,  necessarily  diminished  to  the  vanishing  • 
point.  It  was  an  easy  matter  to  embarrass  Leclerc  by  asking  him  what 
notion  he  had  of  the  Word  of  God,  if  it  was  to  be  recognised  wherever 
the  letter  of  Scripture  made  God  speak  in  person,  and  only  there !  Is 
there  in  the  Bible  no  such  rhetorical  figure  as  the  prosopopaeia?  For 
one  can  hardly  set  down  to  the  account  of  God  the  sanguinary  orders 
executed  by  Joshua  and  his  successors.  Leclerc  admitted  this,  but  this 
last  frail  barrier  overturned,  what  was  left  to  him  except  the  inward 
criterion  of  conscience  and  the  reason?  The  inconsequent  theology  of 
Arminianism  was  in  reality  only  a  transition  to  the  rationalism  of  the 
following  age. 

This  dualism  of  revelation  and  reason,  that  is,  of  two  terms  exter- 
nally limiting  and  excluding  one  another  as  two  heterogeneous  sources 

1  Grotius,  "  Votum  pro  Pace  Eccles.,"  p.  672. 

2  J.  Leclerc,  "  Sentiment  de  quelques  theologiens  de  Hollande,"  1685,  Letters  XI., 
XII;  "Defense  des  sentiments,"  Letters  IX.,  X.,  Amsterdam,  1686. 


CONCESSIONS  AND  COMPROMISES  199 

of  knowledge,  is  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  supernaturalist 
conception  of  religion  and  the  universe.  Rationalism  was  already  in 
the  method;  it  could  not  but  sooner  or  later  appear  in  the  doctrine. 

The  transformation  thus  taking  place  in  the  extremes  of  Protes- 
tantism, among  the  Socinians,  the  Arminians  of  Holland,  and  the  Eng- 
lish Deists,  spread  to  the  very  centre,  the  most  conservative  circles. 
Theologians  most  firmly  bound  to  the  ancient  dogma  felt  constrained  to 
relax  their  bonds.  This  was  especially  the  case  with  the  Saumur  school 
in  France.  Cameron  distinguished  between  the  Word  of  God,  originally 
oral,  and  the  same  Word  afterward  committed  to  writing,  and  was  more 
concerned  with  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  doctrine  than  with  that  of 
the  books  which  contained  it.1  His  successors,  Louis  Cappel,  Amyrault, 
Joshua  de  la  Place,  though  they  repeated  the  time-honoured  formulas, 
were  not  limited  by  them.  The  first  was  not  thereby  deterred  from 
his  critical  studies  of  the  text  of  the  Scripture  and  its  history,  nor 
the  two  others  from  speculating  on  the  universality  of  grace  and  the 
imputability  of  Adam's  sin.2  The  historical  and  critical  spirit  was 
developed  and  extended  by  the  labours  of  Daille  and  Blondel.8 

Violent  disputes  agitated  the  churches  and  divided  the  synods.  An 
ecclesiastical  assembly  held  in  Geneva,  in  1675,  drew  up  the  formula  of 
the  Consensus  helveticarum  ecclesiarum,  as  a  dam  across  the  current. 
Never  was  more  apparent  the  vanity  of  authoritative  proceedings,  their 
radical  inconsistency  with  the  principle  of  Protestantism.  Half  a  cen- 
tury later  the  dam  was  carried  away.  The  orthodox  formula  and  the 
arbitrary  sanctions  which  upheld  it  were  officially  abolished  in  Geneva 

1  The  English  theologian,  Baxter,  was  of  the  same  opinion.  "  It  is  necessary 
for  salvation  to  believe  the  doctrine,  not  books.  There  is  something  human  in  the 
method  and  the  expression,  which  are  not  so  immediately  divine  as  the  doctrine," 
"  The  Saint's  Everlasting  Rest." 

2 "  Syntagma  thes.  theolog."  in  Academia  Salmuriense,  1664.  It  is  apparent  in 
this  collection,  however,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  inspiration  of  the  books  was  more  and 
more  exaggerated  till  it  reached  verbal  inspiration  with  Stephen  Gaussen,  "  Theses  in- 
augurales  de  Verbo  Dei,"  1655. 

1  Appendix  LXXVI. 


200  CONCESSIONS  AND  COMPROMISES 

itself,  thanks  to  the  efforts  of  the  son  of  him  who  had  contributed  most 
to  their  establishment.1 

From  this  time  Arminian  and  Socinian  rationalism  crept  in  every- 
where, into  catechisms  and  sermons,  and  substituted  its  vague  para- 
phrases for  the  older  formulas  of  orthodoxy.  Reason  and  revelation 
are  originally  equally  revered  powers.  But  the  preponderating  author- 
ity soon  passes  over  to  reason,  for  it  is  an  admitted  axiom  that  Scripture 
can  contain  nothing  absurd  or  immoral,  and  if  anything  is  found 
therein  which  appears  so  to  be,  it  must  be  interpreted  according  to  reason 
and  the  conscience. 

In  England  and  Germany  the  same  movement  went  on  with  more  logic 
and  greater  depth.  Official  teaching  was  compelled  to  make  graver  and 
graver  concessions.  The  inspiration  of  the  words  was  first  abandoned, 
except  as  refuge  was  found  in  the  morally  disquieting  theory  of  an 
accommodation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  his  organs  to  the  prejudices  and 
errors  of  men  of  the  time.  In  the  ancient  dogma  of  revelation  •  there 
were  three  elements:  the  divine  impulse  (impulsus  ad  scribendum),  the 
suggestion  of  the  matter  (suggestio  rerum),  and  the  inspiration  of  the 
words  (suggestio  verborum).  Of  these  three  elements,  the  first  and 
third  totally  disappear,  and  the  second,  which  alone  appears  important, 
is  reduced  to  a  simple  direction  of  the  intelligence  and  the  memory,  which 
preserved  the  sacred  writers  from  serious  errors. 

The  mystic  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  bringing  to  the  soul  imme- 
diate confirmation  of  the  truth  of  Scripture,  is  no  longer  admitted,  nor 
even  comprehended.2  The  apologists  confined  their  demonstration  to  an 
appeal  to  history  and  the  reason.  But  the  testimony  of  history,  more 
and  more  invalidated  by  criticism,  inevitably  ended  in  a  general  doubt, 
and  the  testimony  of  the  reason,  which  soon  became  dominant,  effected 
the  transformation  of  revelation  into  moral  philosophy,  and  of  positive 
into  natural  religion. 

In  England  more  than  elsewhere  men  cultivated  the  historical  method 
1  Appendix  LXXVII.  f  Appendix  LXXVIH. 


CONCESSIONS  AND  COMPROMISES  201 

of  demonstration  by  means  of  the  prophecies  and  miracles.1  It  proved 
powerless  to  meet  the  philosophic  criticism  of  Locke  and  Hume.  If  we 
take  the  Old  Testament  prophecies  literally,  it  is  clear  that  they  were 
not  fulfilled  in  the  New,  and  the  claims  of  Christianity  are  false.  If 
we  interpret  them  allegorically,  it  is  still  clear  that  they  prove  nothing, 
for  there  are  no  ancient  texts  that  may  not  thus  be  adjusted  to  a  later 
history. 

The  argument  from  miracles  is  even  less  weighty.  Supposing  them 
to  be  true,  they  prove  nothing,  for  a  healthy  reason  would  simply  believe 
itself  to  be  in  presence  of  phenomena  whose  causes  it  fails  to  grasp. 
How  shall  a  positive  demonstration  be  drawn  from  an  avowal  of  igno- 
rance? Is  it  not  easier  to  make  the  conscience  accept  the  moral  teachings 
of  Christ  than  to  convince  the  reason  of  the  reality  of  miracles  and  of 
his  corporeal  resurrection?2 

If  this  moral  doctrine  constitutes  the  permanent  and  essential  ele- 
ment of  Christianity,  natural  religion  logically  takes  the  place  of  revealed 
religion. 

In  the  same  way  the  supernaturalism  of  the  German  theologians, 
the  victim  of  its  own  inherent  dualism,  by  degrees  gave  place  to  a  more 
consistent  and  radical  rationalism.  The  apologetic  of  men  like  Baum- 
garten,  Crusius,  Toellner,  availed  itself  of  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  and 
Wolff ;  it  was  introducing  the  enemy  into  the  citadel.  We  do  not  appre- 
ciate the  power  of  reason.  Wherever  it  takes  possession  it  commands, 
recognising  no  tribunal  above  itself.  To  prove  by  rational  argument 
the  truth  of  any  doctrine  whatever  is  to  make  it  a  rational  truth.  The 
reasonableness  of  an  argument  implies  and  necessarily  establishes  the 
reasonableness  of  the  conclusion. 

It  availed  nothing  to  assert  that  the  Christian  doctrine  is  above 

*W.  Whiston,  "The  Accomplishment  of  Scripture  Prophecies,"  1708;  N.  Lardner, 
"The  Credibility  of  the  Gospel  History,"  1727-57;  Tb,  Chalmers,  "The  Evidence  and 
Authority  of  the  Christian  Revelation,"  1834. 

*  D.  Hume,  "  Essay  on  Miracles." 


202  LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS 

reason  but  not  opposed  to  it,  for  of  two  things  one  is  true:  either  this 
superior  doctrine  has  no  relations  with  the  reason,  and  the  reason  in  that 
case  cannot  recognise  it,  but  it  must  be  accepted  blindly;  or  else  the 
reason  accepts  it  because  of  motives  of  which  she  can  understand  the 
value,  and  the  doctrine  necessarily  enters  the  domain  of  rational  verities. 
It  was  often  said  that  revelation  is  to  the  reason  what  the  telescope  is 
to  the  eye.  But  the  eye  sees  what  is  in  the  speculum,  and  in  the  last 
analysis  reason  judges  of  it.  Reduced  to  the  simple  function  of  a  tem- 
porary auxiliary,  either  to  shorten  the  route  or  to  hasten  the  progress 
of  humanity,  revelation  would  not  only  lose  its  former  sovereignty,  but 
it  would  soon  disappear,  since  the  progress  of  reason  would  render  it 
progressively  less  needful.  Religion  shut  up  within  the  limits  of  the 
reason — this  is  the  point  where  the  critical  movement,  begun  with  Grotius 
and  Leclerc,  ends  in  the  philosophy  of  Kant  and  the  theology  of  Weg- 
scheider.1  The  dogma  of  plenary  inspiration  drags  with  it  into  its  final 
ruin  the  notion  of  revelation  itself. 


RATIONALISM  made  an  end  of  scholasticism,  without  essentially  differing 
from  it.  It  was  and  it  affected  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  which 
nominalism  was  and  did  in  the  fifteenth.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  like 
dialectic  movement;  it  is  scholasticism  turning  again  back  upon  itself, 
and  pulling  down  its  own  erections  by  means  of  the  very  method  by  which 
it  had  built  them  up. 

Reimarus,  Voltaire,  or  Tindal  had  no  other  idea  of  religion  than 
Quenstedt  or  Calov.  To  all  men  of  that  age  the  Christian  religion  was 
a  supernatural  science,  a  system  of  doctrines  which  some  held  to  be  true 
and  others  false.  As  the  former  explained  it  by  the  hypothesis  of  a 

1I.  Kant,  "Die  Religion  innerhalb  d.  Grenzen  der  blossen  Vernunft,"  1793;  Weg- 
scheider,  "  Inst.  Theol.,"  3d  ed.,  1817. 


LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS  203 

divine  intervention  the  latter  always  found  it  possible  to  attribute  it  to 
clerical  trickery,  and  this  they  did  not  fail  to  do. 

With  the  triumph  of  English  Deism  the  religious  atmosphere  seemed 
to  clear;  in  reality,  it  simply  grew  colder.  Men  sought  a  foothold  in 
the  middle  ground  of  common  sense  in  philosophy,  and  in  middle-class 
integrity  in  morals.  Practical  religion,  bereft  of  warmth  and  ideal, 
was  reduced  to  the  art  of  living  well,  and  turning  to  the  best  advantage 
the  good  things  of  the  earth.  It  was  all  a  matter  of  reason  and  reflec- 
tion. Inspiration  was  dead,  the  hidden  springs  of  the  spiritual  life 
seemed  to  be  dried  up.  Natural  religion,  which  men  tried  to  build  up 
on  the  ruins  of  all  earlier  beliefs,  was  as  lacking  in  vitality  as  in  poetry. 
It  was  insufficient  as  a  philosophical  hypothesis;  as  an  educating  and 
governing  power  it  appeared  inefficacious  and  consequently  useless.  As 
to  the  traditional  religion,  it  seemed  to  live  on  merely  by  force  of  habit. 
Dogmas  and  ceremonies  persisted,  but  only  as  empty  forms.  The  tree 
was  still  deeply  rooted  in  the  ground,  but  shaken  by  the  storms  of  winter 
it  had  lost  its  flowers  and  fruit;  only  the  bare  trunk  with  its  skeleton 
of  dead  and  leafless  branches  stood  up  against  the  low-hanging  sky. 

Historical  criticism  and  exegesis  had  been  the  potent  auxiliaries  of 
rationalistic  religion,  and  had  indeed  assured  its  victory.  But  in  reality 
they  represented  an  independent  power,  which  could  no  better  accommo- 
date itself  to  the  tyranny  of  rationalistic  dogmas  than  to  those  of  ortho- 
doxy. The  history  of  exegesis  during  the  rationalistic  period  is  only 
too  clear.  Rationalism,  essentially  abstract  and  metaphysical,  was  no 
more  alive  to  history  than  to  religious  inspiration ;  it  had  no  insight  into 
the  diversities  of  times,  races,  and  capacities.  To  it  primitive  humanity 
was  an  unknown  region;  it  has  caught  no  glimpse  of  the  spontaneous 
burgeoning  of  the  mysterious  and  profound  child-soul  of  humanity, 
with  its  myths  and  legends,  its  poetry  and  its  dreams,  another  language 
than  the  prose  of  a  cold  rationalism.  Why  should  we  wonder,  then, 
that  it  was  unable  to  appreciate  the  biblical  documents,  and  deemed  that, 
having  settled  the  question  of  the  supernatural  and  divine  authority  of 


204  LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS 

the  sacred  volume,  the  whole  matter  was  settled  and  done  with?  But 
the  time  for  a  new  revelation  was  at  hand,  which  would  restore  to  the 
modern  spirit  that  religious  faculty  which  it  seemed  to  have  lost,  and 
to  the  science  of  history  that  freedom  which  it  needed  in  order  to  com- 
prehend and  revive  the  spiritual  conditions  of  the  earlier  time. 

The  seeds  of  this  new  harvest  had  long  been  germinating,  unperceived 
in  the  historic  soil  of  the  Reformation.  Under  the  most  arid  desert 
sands*there  is  always  living  water,  which,  gushing  forth  here  and  there, 
produces  a  vegetation  which,  however  far  from  luxuriant,  is  yet  always 
fresh  and  young,  and  attests  the  immortal  power  of  life.  Such  were 
the  movements  at  this  time  produced  under  the  influence  of  the  disciples 
of  Spener,  Wesley,  and  the  Moravian  Brethren.  These  pietists  did  not 
discuss  the  external  authority  of  Scripture;  they  did  better;  they  fed 
upon  the  spiritual  food  which  it  offers  to  the  soul,  and  if  they  were  in- 
capable of  solving  questions  of  origin  and  exegesis,  or  of  proving  the 
formal  authority  of  the  biblical  collection,  they  learned  all  the  more 
to  know  its  inward  worth  by  moral  experience.  Thus  it  became  a  matter 
of  demonstration  that  theology  was  not  religion,  nor  correct  dogma 
faith.  It  appeared  clearly  that  Christianity  was  something  other  than 
the  abstract  thesis  of  the  supernatural  authority  of  a  book,  that  it  had 
in  itself  that  which  justified  it  immediately  to  the  soul;  and  assurance  of 
faith  was  shown  to  be  something  other  than  historical  research  or  philo- 
sophical discussion.  It  was  found  that  Calvin  was  right  when  he  said 
that  it  was  the  property  of  Christian  assurance  to  have  a  higher  sanc- 
tion than  human  reason:  the  inward  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  From 
the  purely  formal  principle  of  the  Reformation,  that  is,  the  external 
authority  of  the  Bible,  on  which  for  more  than  a  century  everything 
had  been  based,  men  turned  with  more  or  less  intuition  and  logic  to 
the  essential  principle,  to  the  religious  and  moral  substance,  the  enfran- 
chising doctrine  of  justification  by  faith;  that  is,  to  the  immediate  appre- 
hension by  the  repentant  and  believing  soul  of  the  divine  gift,  of  the 
Father's  grace  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  Such  is  the  important 


LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS  206 

revolution  which,  effected  without  observation  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  brought  about  the  striking  religious  revivals  of  the 
nineteenth.  Premonitory  signs  were  multiplied,  and  prophetic  voices, 
ever  clearer  and  more  numerous,  proclaimed  the  new  era. 

First  was  heard  the  uncertain,  passionate,  eloquent  voice  of  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau.  To  appreciate  the  religious  originality  of  Rousseau 
we  must  compare  him  with  Voltaire.  Both  indeed  are  Deists  and  ration- 
alists, but  the  first  has  something  which  the  other  lacks — religious  emo- 
tion, the  electric  spark  of  life.  Emotion,  in  fact,  is  the  very  life  of 
religion,  because  it  alone  can  show  that  the  human  soul  has  recognised 
the  divine  guest  which  it  carries  in  itself,  and  has  given  itself  to  it. 
With  Rousseau  the  soul  looks  from  without  inward,  and  beneath  the 
barren  activity  of  the  discursive  reason  rediscovers  the  deeps  springs  of 
sentiment  and  inspiration,  all  the  life  of  the  heart,  with  its  intuitions,  its 
needs,  and  its  secret  reasonings  which  the  reason  knows  not  of. 

It  is  the  upspringing  of  this  intense  subjective  life  which  makes 
the  originality  and  power  of  Rousseau's  eloquence.  Just  as  he  dis- 
covered the  true  soul  under  the  conventions  and  artifices  of  civilised  life, 
the  feeling  for  nature  under  praises  of  an  ornamental  country  seat,  the 
passion  of  love  under  gallantry,  so  he  discovered  inward  religion  under 
the  practices  and  traditions  of  the  Church,  the  gospel  of  Christ  within 
the  scaffoldings  of  theology.  Historical  demonstrations  of  the  truth 
of  a  religion  on  which  depend  the  eternal  destiny  of  individuals  tended 
rather  to  awake  than  to  dispel  his  doubts.  A  series  of  historic  testi- 
monies, all  fallible,  heaped  up  to  establish  a  divine  infallibility,  seemed 
to  him  absurd.  "  How  many  men,"  he  cried,  "  between  God  and  me ! " 
Yet,  when  he  opened  the  gospel  and  gave  himself  up  to  reading  it,  he 
felt,  with  deep  emotion,  its  sovereign  attraction.  "  The  majesty  of  the 
Scriptures  astonishes  me;  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospels  speaks  to  my 
heart."  Thus  religious  thought,  with  still  uncertain  steps,  made  its 
way  from  the  surface  to  the  heart,  from  the  study  of  the  tree  to  the  taste 
of  the  fruit,  instinctively  trying  to  substitute  the  inward  experience  oJP 


206  LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS 

faith,  which  is  the  essential  principal  of  the  Reformation,  for  the  purely 

formal  principle  of  the  divine  authority  of  the  book.1 

In  Germany  the  voice  of  Lessing  arose  more  clear  and  penetrating. 
His  mind,  like  a  pure  diamond  which  not  only  cuts,  but  sparkles,  reflected 
in  its  fires  all  aspects  of  the  time-consciousness,  while  with  its  trench- 
ant edge  it  laid  bare  the  secret  vice  of  fallacious  apologetics.  He  was 
at  once  a  marvellous  dialectician  and  a  prophet,  a  rationalist  and  a  mys- 
tic. In  the  very  heat  of  battle  he  sowed  the  seeds  of  a  new  harvest. 
His  criticism  breathed  through  authoritative  theology  and  conventional 
literature  like  healthy  spring  breezes.  Through  the  irony  of  his 
paradoxes  and  apologues  flowed  a  generous  sap.  "  If  God,"  he  boldly 
said,  "  were  to  offer  me  in  one  hand  the  immutable  truth  and  in  the  other 
the  search  for  truth,  I  should  say  in  all  humility,  *  Lord,  keep  the  abso- 
lute truth;  it  is  not  suited  to  me.  Leave  to  me  only  the  power  and  the 
desire  to  seek  for  it,  though  I  never  find  it  wholly  and  definitively.' ' 
This  is  not  scepticism,  it  is  faith ;  it  is  the  lively  sense  that  truth  is  not 
a  sum  of  clearly  defined  knowledge,  but  loyal  and  upright  activity 
of  thought  and  the  normal  growth  of  the  mind  itself.  The  truth  is 
formed  in  us  because  we  have  first  of  all  to  form  ourselves  in  it.  The 
first  condition  of  having  the  truth  is  to  be  in  the  truth. 

It  is  a  still  more  fruitful  thought  that  the  truth  has  no  need  to  make 
itself  known  by  exterior  sanctions,  such  as  prodigies  and  miracles.  The 
intrinsic  qualities  of  evidence  and  persuasive  influence  are  its  true  marks, 
given  it  by  God  to  open  its  way  to  all  upright  hearts.  The  Christian 
religion  has  no  need  of  the  frail  supports  with  which  theology  seeks  to 
prop  it ;  it  has  always  been,  and  still  is,  proved  by  its  own  virtue.  "  If 
the  paralytic  feels  the  beneficent  shock  of  the  electric  spark,  and  so 
regains  power  to  walk,  what  matters  it  to  him  whether  Nollet  or  Frank- 
lin, or  indeed  neither  of  them,  was  right  in  his  theory  of  electricity?  " 

It  is  not  because  the  Christian  religion  is  in  the  Bible  that  it  is  true ; 
it  is  because  it  is  in  itself  true  that,  when  you  find  it  in  the  Bible,  you 
1  Rousseau,  "  Emile,"  Boot  I V.,  "  Letters  from  the  Mountain." 


LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS  207 

say  that  the  Bible  teaches  the  truth.  The  Christian  religion  does  not 
rest  upon  the  Bible ;  we  can  discuss  the  origin  and  value  of  the  one  with- 
out attacking  the  truth  of  the  other.  The  Christian  religion  existed 
before  a'single  book  of  the  Bible  was  written  and  canonised ;  it  would  still 
exist  even  if  the  early  Christian  books  had  disappeared.  To  put  the 
Bible  in  its  true  place  is  not  to  depreciate  it.  Without  the  slightest 
doubt  it  contains  revelation ;  it  is  not  revelation.  There  are  in  it  many 
things  entirely  foreign  to  religion.  How  shall  we  help  making  the  dis- 
tinctions that  common  sense  indicates  ?  Do  they  of  Hamburg  neglect  to 
distinguish  net  weight  from  gross  weight,  and  to  separate  the  merchan- 
dise from  its  packing? 

"  The  letter,"  says  Lessing  emphatically,  "  is  not  the  Spirit.  The 
Spirit  acts  through  the  letter,  but  it  is  not  bound  to  it.  It  blows  where 
it  will,  and  it  blows  everywhere.  Oh,  Luther,  thou  hast  delivered  us 
from  the  yoke  of  tradition!  who  shall  deliver  us  from  the  yoke  of  thy 
letter?  "  l  Lessing  is  a  prophet  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  there  are  not  many  inconsistent  elements  in 
his  writings.  He  is  of  his  time,  though  he  overpasses  his  time.  To  feel 
his  vivid  originality  we  must  compare  him  with  Reimarus,  whose  pene- 
trating editor  he  was.  Reimarus  is  a  man  of  the  past ;  he  reasons  with 
the  premisses  of  scholasticism ;  he  has  the  same  conception  of  revelation 
and  religious  inspiration  as  Goetze  and  the  other  orthodox  pastors  whom 
he  exasperates.  When  they  say,  "  Miracle,  communication  from 
heaven,"  he  cries,  "  Imposture  and  priestly  ambition."  One  explanation 
is  as  good  as  the  other,  and  both  are  of  precisely  the  same  order.  In 
both  cases  the  natural,  living  fabric  of  history  is  arbitrarily  rent,  either 
by  the  divine  will  or  by  the  human  will.  Rationalists  and  supernatural- 
ists  of  this  kind  give  an  equal  shock  to  Lessing's  historic  and  his  religious 
sense.  In  his  own  way  he  transforms  the  idea  of  revelation;  it  is  not 

'Lessing,  "  Theol.  Schriften.,"  2te  Abtheil,  I.  pp.  261,  262.  See,  especially,  the 
little  tracts;  Sendschreiben :  Ueber  den  Beweis  des  Geistes  u.  der  Kraft;  Eine 
Parabel;  Axiomata,  Les  re'pliques  et  dupliqes  a  Goetze;  Religion  Christi  und  Christ- 
liche  Religion. 


208  LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS 

a  quantum  of  doctrines  formulated  once  for  all  with  absolute  rigour:  it 
is  something  living,  or  rather,  something  inherent  in  the  spiritual  life 
itself,  the  constant  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  human  conscience 
to  awaken  and  purify  it,  to  lift  it  step  by  step  to  the  full  light  of  truth, 
justice,  and  fraternal  love.  No  historic  religion  is  absolutely  true,  but 
also  none  is  entirely  false.  They  all  enter  the  divine  plan  of  history,  like 
successive  moments,  with  a  relative  legitimacy.  Revelation  is  a  peda- 
gogic ;  it  is  God  carrying  on  the  progressive  education  of  humanity. 

If  Christianity  is  the  perfect  religion,  it  is  just  because  in  it  the 
Spirit  of  God  appears  absolutely  independent  of  the  letter  and  of  rites. 
In  his  most  excellent  historical  creations  he  always  remains  ideal  and 
transcendent :  he  asserts  himself  in  sovereign  freedom.  By  degrees,  and 
not  in  a  book,  but  in  souls,  not  with  ink,  but  in  practical  truths  and  in 
sentiments  of  love,  he  indites  his  supreme  revelation,  "  The  Eternal 
Gospel."1 

All  is  not  clear  in  Lessing's  thought.  His  Christianity  consists  of 
certain  eternal  verities  entirely  disconnected  with  history.  History  is 
not  only  incapable  of  establishing  them ;  it  continually  contradicts  them. 
There  is  no  bridge  by  which  to  pass  from  the  domain  of  historic  facts, 
which  are  accidental,  to  the  domain  of  the  eternal  reason.  There  is  an 
absolute  antithesis  between  the  immutable  and  the  contingent,  between 
God  and  the  world.  Therefore,  the  very  idea  of  a  divine  education  of 
men  by  history  becomes  impossible.  This  is  the  radical  vice  in  Lessing's 
system ;  by  this  as  yet  unresolved  dualism  he  belongs  to  the  time  of  Wolff 
and  of  natural  religion.  In  order  that  there  should  be  an  education  in 
history  there  must  be  a  progressive  revelation  of  the  divine  reason  in 
history  itself,  the  metaphysical  truth  must  be  immanent  in  human  devel- 
opment, the  divine  Word  must  be  made  flesh,  that  time  and  eternity, 
history  and  metaphysics,  may  be  reconciled.  Thus  the  Christian  reli- 

1  Lessing,  "  Abhandlung  iiber  die  Erziehung  des  raenschl.  Geschlechts."  On  the 
character  of  Lessing's  Christianity  see  F.  Lichtenberger,  "  Hist,  des  idees  rel.  en  Alle- 
magne,"  I.  p.  67;  J.  A.  Dorner,  "History  of  Protestant  Theology." 


LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS  209 

gion  will  finally  regain  its  value  and  dignity  as  a  historic  force.  Lessing 
announced  the  impending  revolution  without  feeling  in  himself  the 
strength  to  inaugurate  it.  He  invoked  the  advent  of  a  stronger  thinker 
than  he.  He  was  only  a  precursor,  and  he  knew  it.  The  Messiah  of 
the  new  era  was  Schleiermacher.1  This  great  man  is  at  the  turning 
point  of  the  age.  With  him  Luther's  reform  returns  to  its  creative 
principle, — justification  by  the  faith  of  the  heart, — and  Protestantism 
enters  upon  a  new  phase. 

Schleiermacher's  antecedents  predestinated  him  to  his  work.  From 
the  Moravian  Brethren  who  brought  him  up  he  received  the  endowment 
of  a  warm,  intense  piety,  yet  sufficiently  free  on  the  dogmatic  side.  His 
thought  had  been  formed  in  the  dialectical  school  of  Plato  and  Spinoza. 
Thence  the  two  constituent  elements  of  his  theology :  the  religion  of  the 
heart  considered  as  an  irreducible  fact  of  experience  anterior  to  any 
religious  theory,  and  an  intellectual  strength  of  extraordinary  rigour 
and  force.  It  would  have  been  morally  impossible  for  him  to  subordi- 
nate one  element  to  the  other.  "  Reason  and  sentiment,"  he  wrote  to 
Jacobi,  "  live  in  me  apart,  but  contiguous.  It  is  a  sort  of  galvanic  pile, 
the  spark  of  which  creates  the  activity  of  my  mind."  To  reconcile  senti- 
ment and  reason,  to  find  the  scientific  theory  of  his  religious  faith,  was 
his  life  task,  the  endeavour  of  his  thought.  If  there  are  some  discrep- 
ancies in  his  attempted  synthesis,  if  the  philosopher  and  the  Christian 
within  him  are  not  always  in  accord,  it  is  doubtless  because  the  solution 
of  the  problem  can  never  be  more  than  approximate,  and  still  remains 
not  the  work  of  one  man,  but  the  historic  task  of  humanity. 

The  common  error,  both  of  the  rationalists  and  the  supernaturalists, 
who  were  waging  a  venerable  but  sterile  warfare  in  the  arena  of  theology, 
was  to  consider  faith  as  a  sum  of  traditional  doctrine,  which  one  party 
deduced  from  reason  and  the  other  believed  to  have  fallen  from  heaven. 
By  both  methods  equally  religion  was  reduced  to  an  intellectual  opera- 
tion. Schleiermacher  took  from  under  the  combatants  the  very  ground 
on  which  they  were  fighting.  Faith,  he  said,  is  not  a  doctrine  nor  a 

'Appendix  LXXIX. 


210  LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS 

system  of  doctrines,  it  is  neither  a  dogma  nor  a  precept  received  from 
an  exterior  authority,  it  is  vital  piety,  the  inward  tendency  of  the  reli- 
gious sentiment  itself;  it  is  the  loving  and  joyful  recognition  of  the 
relations  of  the  soul  with  God.  Being  an  independent,  original,  psycho- 
logic act,  faith  then  becomes  an  object  of  observation  and  a  fact  of 
experience,  not  of  individual  experience  alone,  but  of  collective  experi- 
ence, a  historic  fact,  permanent  in  the  very  life  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  making  itself  known  as  such  to  philosophic  reflection,  whose  task  it 
is  to  understand  it  and  labour  to  make  it  intelligible.  This  labour  is 
the  part  of  theology.  Faith  is  not  the  effect,  it  is  the  cause  of  the 
dogma.  To  confound  the  two  is  as  unreasonable  as  to  confound  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  which  physics  is  investigating,  with  the  successive 
explications  which  physicists  have  given  them.1 

By  such  teaching,  the  basis  of  the  old  dogmatic  was  displaced  and 
the  very  nature  of  theology  transformed.  There  could  then  be  an  ex- 
perimental science  of  religion,  a  positive  science  which  had  for  its  task 
to  observe,  classify,  and  rigorously  concentrate  the  religious  phenomena, 
ranking  not  below  the  other  sciences,  but  side  by  side  with  those  in  the 
encyclopaedia  of  human  knowledge.  Thus  to  conquer  independence  for 
religion,  and  for  the  science  of  religion  its  uncontested  legitimacy,  is  the 
most  eminent  service  which  Schleiermacher  rendered  at  once  to  religious 
faith  and  to  philosophy. 

With  him  the  Protestant  conscience  finally  passed  the  strait  which 
separates  the  theology  of  authority  from  the  theology  of  experience. 
Religious  truth  could  no  longer  be  given  by  an  oracle;  henceforth  it 
must  spring  out  of  Christian  experience  itself,  and  never  cease  to  repro- 
duce itself  in  pious  souls,  under  the  permanent  influence  of  the  Spirit 
of  Christ.  Holy  Scripture  could  no  longer  be  the  foundation  of  faith ; 
it  became  an  auxiliary,  a  means  of  grace.  In  the  doctrinal  system  built 
up  by  the  dialectic  of  Schleiermacher,  the  Bible  no  longer  takes  its  place 
in  the  foundation,  but  on  the  summit  of  the  edifice.  No  doubt  it  con- 
*  F.  Schleiennacher,  "  Der  christl.  Glaube,"  Einleit,  sect.  15-31. 


LATENT  GERMS  AND  NEW  METHODS  211 

tinues  to  be  a  production  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
considered  as  a  collective  spirit,  the  historic  soul  of  the  Church,  the 
immanent  divine  principle  of  her  earthly  life  and  activity.  The  witness 
of  the  Spirit  to  Christ  in  the  New  Testament  is  not  essentially  different 
from  its  witness  to  him  in  the  works  of  the  centuries  following.  There 
is  not  at  any  moment  an  exterior  and  visible  passage  from  the  super- 
natural to  the  natural ;  the  divine  and  the  human  are  constantly  mingled 
in  all  writings  which  are  truly  Christian.  The  superiority  of  those  of 
the  apostles  and  their  immediate  successors  lies  in  being  primitive,  and 
by  so  much  the  more  original,  and  in  having  been  composed  under  the 
still  living  influence  of  the  person  of  Christ,  which  was  not  the  case  with 
any  who  came  later.  The  water  of  the  stream  is  always  purer  near  the 
spring  than  in  its  later  current.  Thence  come  the  peculiar  dignity 
and  historic  authority  of  the  New  Testament  books.  They  remain  the 
norm  of  Christian  tradition  because  they  are  its  oldest  and  most  authentic 
documents.  As  for  the  Old  Testament,  the  Bible  of  Judaism,  it  is  not 
of  especial  interest  to  Christians,  since  it  brings  them  only  memories  of 
an  earlier  religion,  superseded  and  abolished  by  the  new  religion. 

To  sum  up,  the  authority  of  Holy  Scripture  cannot  be  the  object  of 
faith,  nor  can  it  even  be  the  basis  of  faith  in  Christ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  faith  in  Christ  which  makes  the  Christian  and  which  alone  makes 
it  possible  for  him  to  recognise  the  peculiar  authority  of  Scripture. 
Formerly  men  went  from  the  Bible  to  Christ;  henceforth  men  will  go 
from  Christ  to  the  Bible.  Faith  in  Christ,  a  life  in  communion  with 
Christ,  the  transformation  of  our  evil  self  by  his  word  and  spirit,  are 
effects  in  the  exclusively  moral  order,  and  immediately  justified  to  each 
conscience  in  which  they  have  taken  place.  The  Bible,  the  canon,  and 
the  books  which  constitute  it,  are  historic  and  literary  phenomena  which 
it  is  neither  legitimate  nor  possible  to  withdraw  from  the  researches  and 
authority  of  criticism,  exegesis,  and  history.1 

Thus  in  Protestantism  was  begun  the  evolution  of  the  religion  of 
1 "  Sendschreiben  an  D.  Luecke,"  II.,  "  Studien  u.  Kritiken,"  1829,  p.  496ff. 


212  REVIVAL  AND  REACTION 

the  letter  toward  the  religion  of  the  spirit.  The  work  of  Luther  was 
prolonged  without  inconsistency;  it  was  freed  from  the  shreds  of 
Catholicism  which  for  more  than  two  centuries  had  painfully  encumbered 
it,  and  enabled  to  concentrate  itself  and  find  life  in  its  own  peculiar 
principle  of  personal  faith  and  immediate  experience  of  truth.  Yet  was 
the  struggle  not  ended.  The  past  was  again  to  make  itself  felt  in  a 
singularly  violent  attack.  Battles  like  these  must  be  won  more  than 
once  before  victory  is  assured.  Yet  the  issue  could  be  no  longer  doubt- 
ful. Schleiermacher  had  opened  a  door  to  the  future  which  no  one  would 
thenceforth  have  power  to  shut. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

THE    AUTHORITY   OF    THE    3IBLE    IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

I 

Revival  and  Reaction 

RELIGIOUS  forms  and  institutions  consecrated  by  an  age-long  tradition 
may  appear  outworn  and  dead;  but  inevitably  every  awakening  of  the 
conscience  turns  to  their  profit  and  gives  them  a  new  lease  of  life.  They 
are  like  those  hardy  vegetations  which  the  summer  sun  dries  up,  to  be 
revived  and  grow  green  again  with  the  first  dews  of  the  autumn  sky. 

The  deepest  springs  of  the  soul's  life  had  been  reopened  by  the  com- 
motion of  those  great  catastrophes,  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire.1 
The  optimistic  rationalism  and  the  facile  life  which  had  characterised 
the  preceding  age  had  vanished.  Everything  had  seemed  to  crumble 
away  together  in  the  fearful  storms  which  brought  home  to  every  man 

1  In  the  French-speaking  countries  this  movement  has  received  the  name  of  the 
Revival. 


REVIVAL  AND  REACTION  213 

the  insufficiency  of  his  own  powers  and  his  own  light,  and  had  awakened 
within  him  the  tragic  sense  of  the  mystery  of  things  and  of  his  own 
destiny.  Passing  through  a  succession  of  events  whose  rapidity  dizzied 
him,  he  gained  in  this  flight  of  things  a  clearer  vision  of  the  eternal 
and  the  infinite,  and  felt  a  vague  desire  to  shelter  himself  in  them.  Here, 
as  always,  his  imagination  outran  his  intelligence.  Regret  for  the  loss 
of  his  youthful  faith  first  awakened  a  longing  for  it,  and  soon  gave  him 
an  impression  of  having  found  it  again. 

In  default  of  convictions  he  had  emotions;  he  was  touched  with  the 
poetry  of  the  ancient  faith;  he  experienced  again  the  mystic  influence 
of  cathedrals  and  religious  rites.  This  revival  was  not  very  profound, 
but  it  was  very  vivid.  Romanticism  was  its  expression  and  its  flower. 
All  branches  of  art  found  their  youth  again.  Religious  enthusiasm 
performs  miracles  of  this  sort :  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  breathe  in  a  man 
all  the  faculties  of  the  soul  begin  to  bloom.1 

The  religious  revival  was  complicated  with  a  political  reaction.  The 
Revolution  had  cast  down  throne  and  altar ;  both  must  be  raised  up. 
People  began  to  blush  for  things  of  which  the  preceding  century  had 
been  proud.  That  century  had  combated  dogmas  in  the  name  of  philos- 
ophy and  reason;  people  set  themselves  to  restore  the  dogmas  and  to 
make  reason  bend  to  faith.  They  had  carried  liberty  to  the  wildest 
license;  with  equal  passion  they  threw  themselves  into  the  arms  of 
authority,  and  made  it  an  absolute  theory,  as  they  had  made  an  absolute 
theory  of  liberty.  Joseph  de  Maistre,  de  Bonald,  Lamennais,  each  in 
his  own  way  and  by  arguments  of  his  own  magnified  the  theocratic 
order;  they  set  forth  its  principles  and  unfolded  its  effects  with  a  sin- 
cerity of  logic  which  made  its  vices  and  perils  only  the  more  apparent 
to  the  common  judgment. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  everywhere  analogous  processes  and  identical 
reasonings  in  the  most  dissimilar  countries  and  the  most  antagonistic 
Churches — all  being  moved  by  the  same  needs  and  the  same  tendency  of 
things. 

1  Appendix    LXXX. 


214  REVIVAL  AND  REACTION 

In  Protestant  theology  the  resurrection  of  the  dogma  of  the  plenary 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  responds  to  the  theory  of  papal  infalli- 
bility in  Catholicism.  Everywhere  men  were  raising  up  idols  by  way 
of  escape  from  anarchy  and  doubt.  The  blind  desire  to  find  somewhere 
a  visible,  undebatable  authority,  silenced  all  objections  and  overcame  all 
scruples.  The  all-powerful  a  priori  effected  precisely  this.  The  ques- 
tion was  not  whether  the  Bible  and  the  Pope  were  really  infallible;  the 
point  was  to  show  that  they  must  be  so.  The  Protestant  Gaussen  reasons 
precisely  like  the  Catholic  Maistre.  They  do  not  agree  as  to  the  organ  of 
divine  infallibility,  but  each  will  have  his  own ;  each  chooses  it  according 
to  his  tradition  and  preferences,  but  he  justifies  it  by  the  same  argu- 
ment. 

Contemporaneously  with  the  reawakening  of  the  religious  sentiment 
two  other  forces  had  sprung  into  a  new  and  incomparable  life,  the  science 
of  history  and  natural  science.  At  first,  far  from  embarrassing  or 
opposing  religion,  they  appeared  to  render  it  service.  Did  not  Newton's 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  as  strikingly  as  David's?  Were  not 
piety  and  the  historic  imagination  equally  stimulated  by  the  "  Martyrs  " 
of  Chateaubriand  and  the  novels  of  Walter  Scott?  But  the  inconsis- 
tency blazed  forth  as  soon  as  the  religious  sentiment  sought  to  command 
respect  and  influence  by  reviving  the  dogmas  and  formulas  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  cosmos  of  the  modern  world  had  become  too  large  to  be  shut 
up  in  the  limits  of  ancient  thought. 

The  generation  which  came  upon  the  stage  with  the  new  century 
was  like  a  man  who,  having  reached  maturity,  expects  nothing  more  of 
life,  sighs  for  the  dreams  of  childhood  while  knowing  himself  powerless 
to  go  back  to  them.  Thus  the  men  of  the  time,  swaying  between  the 
desire  to  believe  and  the  impossibility  of  believing  what  tradition  offered 
them  as  religious  truth,  fell  into  a  melancholy  quite  as  much  compounded 
of  piety  as  of  scepticism.  Doubt  often  appeared  to  be  more  religious 
than  faith.  We  remember  Schiller's  saying :  "  Why  hast  thou  no  reli- 
gion— for  religion's  sake."  It  was  as  necessary  to  renew  ideas  and  in- 


REVIVAL  AND  REACTION  216 

stitutions  as  sentiments.  But  both  intellectual  and  moral  vigour  were 
wanting  for  such  an  enterprise.  A  few  choice  spirits  proclaimed  the 
necessity  of  a  reformation,  but  these  infrequent  prophets  were  either 
misunderstood  or  unheeded. 

In  general,  men  were  content  with  attempts  at  conciliation  which 
veiled  the  difficulty,  but  did  not  cure  it.  They  sewed  patches  of  new 
cloth  upon  the  old  garment,  but  the  resulting  rents  were  so  much  the 
worse.  It  is  enough  to  recall  the  memorable  history  of  Lamennais  and 
his  journal  VAvenir.  The  painful  crisis  of  which  Jouffroy  gives  the 
story  in  a  celebrated  essay  was  not  less  significant.1  Nearly  all  the  great 
souls  of  that  age  had  their  Gethsemane  night. 

This  state  of  mind  was  at  that  time  universal.  But  nowhere  is  it 
more  pathetically  revealed  than  in  England.  And  this  is  entirely  ex- 
plicable; as  the  English  have  at  once  profound  religious  needs  and  a 
very  vivid  sense  of  reality,  it  was  unavoidable  that  they  should  suffer 
more  than  others  in  the  inevitable  conflict  which  in  this  revival  period 
was  waged  between  their  religious  tradition  and  their  general  culture.2 

In  Germany  biblical  science  and  the  Kantian  philosophy  were  in  the 
forefront  of  the  struggle.  The  new  theology  which  Schleiermacher,  de 
Wette,  and  others  endeavoured  to  deduce  from  it  offered  no  strong  point 
of  resistance  against  men  of  the  Church  and  the  government,  who  exer- 
cised authority  and  carried  on  the  work  of  propaganda.  The  people 
were  all  unaware  of  the  new  conceptions,  elaborated  in  university  halls. 
As  in  England  Puseyism  upheld  the  authority  of  Catholic  tradition  and 
the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments  as  a  refuge  for  battle-tossed  souls,  so 
in  Germany  the  new  Lutheran  orthodoxy,  supported  by  pietism,  fell 
back  upon  the  sixteenth-century  Confessions  of  Faith  and  the  infallible 
authority  of  the  letter  of  Scripture.  Neither  English  Puseyites  nor 
German  neo-Lutherans  perceived  the  hazard  to  the  Church  and  the 
menace  to  the  Protestant  principle  in  methods  which  in  fact  were  the 

1 "  Comment  les  dogmes  flnnissent.,"  "  Melanges  philosophiques,"  1833. 
1  See,  for  example,  Francis  Newman's  "  Phases  of  Faith,"  1849. 


216  REVIVAL  AND  REACTION 

most  violent  of  anachronisms.  History  sometimes  resembles,  but  never 
repeats  itself.  The  old  wine-skins,  in  which  they  sought  to  secure  the 
wine  of  the  new  vintage,  must  inevitably  soon  burst  and  the  wine  flow 
forth  in  all  directions.1 

In  French-speaking  countries  the  most  brilliant  and  logical  theorist 
of  the  faith  of  authority  and  the  literal  inspiration  of  the  Bible  was 
Louis  Gaussen,  a  pastor  and  professor  at  Geneva  during  the  first  half  of 
the  century.  His  name  has  become  the  ultimate  symbol  of  a  doctrine 
which  his  ability  as  a  writer  succeeded  in  galvanising  into  a  brief  life. 

By  a  logic  of  extraordinary  simplicity  he  presented  it  in  a  form 
equally  simple.  The  Canon  of  Holy  Scripture,  that  is,  the  collections 
of  writings  to-day  included  within  the  covers  of  a  Protestant  Bible,  was 
made  by  God  himself  and  given  to  the  Church  in  the  beginning  with  the 
express  prohibition  of  ever  adding  anything  to  it  or  taking  anything 
away  from  it.  It  was  a  great  historic  miracle  concerning  which  history 
is  indeed  silent,  but  which  we  must  accept  because  otherwise  there  is  no 
certitude  upon  which  faith  can  rest.  The  Bible  thus  constituted  claims 
to  be  itself  the  pure  word  of  God.  It  must  therefore  be  accepted  as  such 
in  all  its  parts  and  even  in  its  letter.  It  is  of  small  consequence  what 
were  the  names  of  the  men  who  in  divers  times  and  by  divers  manners 
held  the  pen  which  wrote  these  books.  They  were  only  the  instruments 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  is  the  sole  author  and  as  much  responsible  for 
the  style  of  these  writings  as  for  their  thought.  Neither  reason  nor 
conscience  has  a  word  to  say  before  this  divine  text.  When  God  speaks 
man  has  but  to  be  adoringly  and  submissively  silent.  Gaussen  was  both 
preacher  and  poet ;  but  he  was  by  no  means  a  severe  thinker.  Otherwise 
he  could  not  have  failed  to  see,  first,  that  his  initial  assertion,  the  Bible 
in  all  its  parts  claims  to  be  the  word  and  the  work  of  God,  was  false, 
and,  in  the  second  place,  that  supposing  it  to  be  historically  true,  the 
reasoning  with  which  he  supports  it  is  simply  a  vicious  circle.2 

'Appendix  LXXXI. 

*  L.  Gaussen,  "  Theopneustie,  ou    inspiration  pleniere  des  S.  Ecritures,"  3d  ed* 
1842;  "  Le  Canon  des  S.  Escrit,"  2  vols.,  1860. 


REVIVAL  AND  REACTION  217 

Periods  of  reaction  are  thus  far  useful,  that  in  pushing  outworn 
ideas  to  the  extreme  they  make  manifest  their  error  and  thus  hasten  their 
extinction.  It  is  a  sort  of  demonstration  by  the  absurd.  Gaussen  had 
both  disciples  and  rivals  before  formulating  his  theory.  After  that 
event  he  was  left  isolated  in  his  own  field.  Thinkers  hastened  to  disown 
statements  which  they  deemed  compromising,  and  a  deduction  whose  only 
fault  was  its  logic.  They  protested  energetically  against  the  rational- 
istic distinction  between  the  Bible  and  the  Word  of  God,  without,  how- 
ever, saying  how  it  was  possible  or  permissible  to  identify  the  two.  They 
were  driven  to  more  and  more  serious  concessions  as  to  the  inspiration  of 
the  Book,  while  yet  clinging  to  the  dogma  of  its  infallibility.  They 
seemed  not  to  perceive  that  a  tribunal  ceases  to  be  infallible  the  very 
moment  men  feel  themselves  at  liberty  to  discuss  its  decrees,  to  adopt  some 
of  them  and  disregard  others. 

A  situation  so  full  of  ambiguities  and  inconsistencies  could  not  last 
long.  A  revolution  was  imminent.  Two  superior  minds  prepared  its  way 
by  their  endeavours  to  avert  it.  The  first  was  Samuel  Vincent,  who  de- 
fined modern  Protestantism  in  the  words :  "  Free  investigation  is  its 
form;  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  its  substance."  This  was  a  suffi- 
ciently clear  statement  that  Protestantism  claims  no  extrinsic  authority 
before  which  reason  and  conscience  must  bow;  that  the  gospel  is  suffi- 
cient to  itself,  and  claims  acceptance  by  intrinsic  evidence  of  its  worth.1 

At  the  same  period  Alexandre  Vinet,  who,  in  his  discourse  with  de 
Wette  at  Basel  had  perceived  how  frail  was  the  foundation  of  external 
authority  upon  which  dogmatics  was  resting  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
religion,  bent  all  his  powers  to  the  task  of  giving  it  a  more  secure  basis. 
He  found  it  in  the  experience  of  the  Christian  soul  itself,  in  the  profound 
harmony  between  the  need  of  sinful  man  and  the  offer  made  by  God  in  the 
person  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ.2  In  two  respects  this  discovery  opened 

1  Samuel  Vincent,  "  Vues  sur  le  protestantisme,"  1829,  republished  by  Prdvost- 
Paradol  in  1860,  under  the  title:  "  Du  protestantisme  en  France." 

1  A.  Vinet,  "  Etudes  et  nouvelles  evangeliques.  Vide  art.  "  Vinet,"  in  the  "  EncycL 
des  sc.  relig.,"  Vol.  XII. 


218  THE  FINAL  CRISIS 

a  way  out  of  the  subjective  principle  of  Protestant  piety,  checked  and 
repressed  for  two  centuries  by  the  dogma  of  external  authority.  It  was 
a  return  to  the  liberating  principle  of  the  inward  witness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  giving  to  that  its  true  significance  and  bearing ;  it  was  the  shift- 
ing of  religious  authority  from  without  to  within,  and  the  preparation, 
on  the  very  principle  of  the  Reformation,  for  a  reformation  not  less 
radical  than  that  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

With  the  incomparable  advance  made  by  criticism  and  biblical 
exegesis  during  this  first  half  of  the  century,  a  death  struggle  be- 
tween the  ancient  dogmas  and  their  conclusions  became  inevitable. 
The  historic  method  was  fast  becoming  an  exact  science,  and  even 
as  it  was  practised,  for  example,  by  Edouard  Reuss  at  Strasburg, 
a  religion.1  Men  could  no  more  be  conscientiously  untrue  to  it  than  to 
a  command  of  God.  For  its  one  purpose  was  to  discover  the  actual  char- 
acter and  true  meaning  of  these  books  under  the  abstract  and  erroneous 
presentation  of  the  old  dogmatic.  Let  now  a  clear  and  logical  mind 
appear,  inheriting  the  fervent  piety  and  rigid  dogma  of  the  Revival, 
and  trained  in  a  free  university  to  the  conscientious  practice  of  the  his- 
toric method;  the  inconsistency  of  the  two  will  be  intolerable  to  his  own 
conscience,  and  in  the  loyal  endeavour  to  free  himself  from  it  he  will 
awake  the  conscience  of  the  whole  Church  with  a  great  shock.  Such  a 
man  was  Edmond  Scherer. 


The  Fmal  Crisis 

THE  struggle  which  from  1848  to  1860  was  going  on  in  Scherer's  soul 
awoke  so  wide  an  echo  and  exerted  so  great  an  influence  because  it  gave 
form  and  manifestation  to  an  idea  which  many  minds  had  been  secretly 
brooding.  In  the  first  outburst  of  his  thought  there  was  nothing  new 

1  Ed.  Reuss,  "  Hist,  de  la  Theol.  chret  au  siecle  apostolique,"  1852;  "  Histoire  du 
Canon  des  S.  Ecritures,"  1862;  "La  Bible,"  1874-80. 


THE  FINAL  CRISIS  219 

except  the  vigorous  reasoning  and  language  with  which  he  brought  into 
relief  the  antagonisms  latent  in  the  consciousness  of  the  time.  Such 
indignation  or  surprise  as  arose  was  due  to  the  fact  that  one  religious 
society  more  than  another  was  disturbed  that  its  inward  sore  should  be 
unveiled,  and  its  true  picture  held  up  before  it  in  living  outlines. 
Scherer's  criticisms,  the  confessions  of  a  soul  pious  even  to  ecstasy  and 
sincere  even  to  impossibility  of  compromise,  constrained  every  man  to 
look  within  himself,  and  each  found  there  more  or  less  of  the  same  conflict 
between  a  superannuated  theology  and  a  new  historical  culture.  Numer- 
ous voices  at  once  uprose  in  reply  to  the  voice  which  rang  abroad  as  that 
of  a  liberator ;  they  revealed  the  same  condition  of  inward  suffering,  and 
the  same  resolve  to  be  free.  Thus  was  born  the  spontaneous  movement 
that  produced  the  Revue  de  theologie  et  de  philosophie  chretierme  of 
Strasburg,  which  for  twenty  years  exerted  so  decisive  an  influence  upon 
religious  thought  in  France.1 

A  profound  moral  conversion  and  a  fervent  piety  which  hardly 
stopped  short  of  visions  had  led  Edmond  Scherer  in  early  life  to  accept 
the  Revival  dogma  of  the  total  inspiration  and  infallible  authority  of 
the  Scriptures.  There  was  hardly  a  shade  of  difference  between  his 
thought  on  this  point  and  the  theory  of  Gaussen,  his  colleague  of  Geneva. 
Called  by  his  lectures  on  "  Biblical  Criticism  and  Exegesis  "  to  justify 
this  ancient  dogma,  he  saw  it  to  be  denied  by  so  many  patent  facts,  so 
many  actual  observations,  that  he  could  not  continue  to  uphold  it,  and 
as  his  frankness  of  speech  was  equalled  only  by  the  disinterestedness  of 
his  thought,  he  had  no  hesitation  in  at  once  confessing  the  change 
through  which  he  had  passed,  and  presenting  his  resignation  as  Professor 
in  the  Oratoire  Theological  School  of  Geneva.  It  was  the  year  1849, 
and  he  was  then  thirty-four  years  old. 2 

Historically,  Scherer's  criticism  makes  no  new  discovery  and  adds 

1  Vide  in  vol.  i.  of  the  Revue,  pp.  1,  9,  the  articles  by  T.  Colani,  "  Avant-Propos," 
and  Edouard  de  Pressense,  "  Le  Progres  de  la  doctrine  chr6tienne  et  ses  conditions," 
July,  1850. 

1  Appendix  LXXXII. 


220  THE  FINAL  CRISIS 

nothing  to  the  observations  accumulated  in  the  same  line  by  Richard 
Simon,  Jean  Leclerc,  Lessing,  Semler,  and  the  German  theologians  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Whence,  then,  came  the  new  importance  taken 
on  by  the  same  facts  under  his  pen?  Doubtless  it  was  due  to  circum- 
stances, to  the  state  of  mind  created  by  the  Revival,  to  the  theological 
illusion  revived  by  the  new  faith,  but  it  owed  much  to  the  dogmatic  char- 
acter which  Scherer' s  criticism  at  once  assumed.  It  tended  less  to  rectify 
inexact  historic  knowledge  than  to  displace  the  very  basis  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  It  was  the  last  attack  upon  the  faith  of  authority; 
Scherer  was  sapping  the  foundations  of  the  entire  traditional  edifice 
of  the  past,  and  under  its  ruins,  like  Samson  overthrowing  the 
pillars  of  the  idol  temple  of  the  Philistines,  he  was  doomed  to  be 
buried. 

Men  have  never  ceased  to  point  an  awful  warning  from  this  result. 
Those  who  cultivate  the  theology  of  fear  have  found  in  it  the  condemna- 
tion of  criticism  itself.  But  criticism  is  no  more  an  instrument  of  de- 
struction than  a  means  of  salvation.  Its  sole  purpose  is  truth.  To 
proscribe  it  is  deliberately  to  doom  one's  self  to  falsehood.  The  rela- 
tively negative  attitude  taken  by  Scherer  with  regard  to  traditional 
belief  is  as  much  the  responsibility  of  those  who  defended  it  as  of  him- 
self. 

The  conquest  of  truth,  like  every  other  conquest,  implies  arduous 
fighting,  and  every  battle  has  its  victims,  whom  we  ought  to  be  wise 
enough  to  honour  when  they  have  devoted  themselves  absolutely  to  a  just 
cause.  Is  anything  in  this  world  more  holy  than  the  love  of  truth? 
Far  from  being  mutually  hostile,  the  love  of  truth  and  the  love  of  God 
are  identified  in  souls  heroically  sincere,  who  neither  would  nor  could 
enjoy  communion  with  God  at  the  price  of  known  delusions  fostered  by 
selfish  calculation.  Until  the  end  Scherer  loved  the  truth  more  than 
anything  in  the  world;  to  it  he  sacrificed  his  rest  and  consecrated  the 
labour  of  his  life.  Yet  we  do  not  say  that  he  was  always  without  fault 
or  weakness — he  himself  made  no  such  boast — but  we  do  say  that  he 


THE  FINAL  CRISIS  221 

was  more  faithful  to  his  early  dreams,  to  his  earthly  mission,  and  to  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  than  many  Christians  who  had  no  better  reply  to  his 
arguments  than  excommunication. 

The  struggle  would  have  been  less  acute  and  the  reaction  less  violent 
had  the  dogma  been  less  rigid.  The  more  the  Revival  had  concentrated 
the  Christian  religion  in  the  dogma  of  the  Scriptures,  the  more  Christian 
truth  appeared  to  be  endangered  when  the  dogma  fell  to  pieces.  Nothing 
is  easier  to  understand.  An  external  authority  which  insists  upon  being 
believed  on  its  own  assertion  and  merits  must  appear  to  be  impeccable. 
The  first  proved  error  robs  it  of  its  privilege  of  infallibility,  and  im- 
poses upon  the  aroused  reason  the  duty  of  submitting  all  its  assertions 
to  a  loyal  scrutiny.  The  more  these  assertions  are  considered  necessary 
to  the  moral  life  and  the  soul's  salvation,  the  more  imperative  becomes 
the  obligation  to  verify  them  one  by  one.  The  method  of  observation 
and  experience  thus  necessarily  takes  the  place  of  the  method  of  author- 
ity. It  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  correcting  the  excesses  of  some  par- 
ticular dogma.  A  radical  revolution  is  taking  place. 

With  such  a  change  in  method  we  have  not  only  a  change  in  the  char- 
acter of  results,  but  the  quality  of  faith  becomes  different.  To  believe  I , 
that  a  doctrine  is  true  because  it  is  in  the  Bible  is  something  entirely ! 
different  from  saying  that  it  is  in  the  Bible  because  it  is  true.  In  the 
former  case  the  external  supernatural  authority  of  the  Bible  alone  decides 
as  to  truth:  in  the  latter  the  Christian  reason  and  conscience  are  the 
supreme  tribunal.  In  the  first  case  the  Christian  vacates  his  inde- 
pendence of  thought;  he  judges  of  religious  things  according  to  the 
judgment  of  others;  in  the  second,  he  judges  of  them  for  himself.  In 
one  case  he  is  under  tutelage  to  a  letter  which  for  him  is  law;  in  the 
second  he  is  in  the  royal  liberty  of  a  child  of  God,  guided  and  sustained 
by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Under  the  rule  of  exterior  authority  there  must  always  be  an  inter- 
mediary between  man  and  the  truth,  and  this  is  a  remnant  of  Catholi- 
cism ;  under  the  rule  of  the  Spirit  there  is  immediate  contact  between  the 


222  THE  FINAL  CRISIS 

consciousness  and  truth,  and  we  return  to  the  first  and  true  principle, 
of  the  Reformation. 

Scherer's  glory  and  merit  was  to  have  understood  from  the  first  the 
bearing  of  the  impending  crisis,  and  to  have  interpreted  it  as  a  new 
struggle  between  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  principles.  It  is  im- 
possible to  be  too  grateful  to  him  for  having  revivified  the  latter  in  the 
Reformed  Churches  by  showing  with  inexorable  logic  that  Protestant- 
ism would  become  a  stunted,  fickle,  and  superstitious  Catholicism,  that 
it  would  lose  its  inward  salt  and  its  whole  reason  for  being,  if  it  did  not 
itself  complete  the  work  of  transferring  the  authority  of  religion  from 
without  to  within,  if  it  did  not  effect  its  own  inward  transformation  by 
rising  from  a  religion  of  authority  to  the  religion  of  the  Spirit. 

Nothing  is  better  adapted  to  bring  out,  even  at  this  late  day,  the 
power  of  Scherer's  criticism,  than  a  reading  of  the  replies  which  it 
elicited.1  The  confusion  was  universal.  The  defenders  of  the  old  sys- 
tem mutually  refuted,  and  so  to  speak,  cancelled  one  another  by  the 
diverse  inconsistencies  of  their  arguments.  Thus  Jalaguier,  the  wisest 
among  them,  disavowed  the  indefensible  exaggerations  of  the  thorough- 
going theopneustics ;  he  fell  back,  however,  upon  the  weak  arguments 
of  the  Arminians  and  Socinians,  and  endeavoured  to  base  the  divine 
authority  of  the  New  Testament  upon  the  reality  of  the  miracles,  and 
their  reality  upon  the  authenticity  of  the  books  and  the  historical  good 
faith  of  their  authors.  He  did  not  perceive  the  vagueness  of  this  notion 
of  authenticity  when  applied  to  a  literature  which  is  in  great  part  anony- 
mous or  pseudonymous,  how  contrary  it  is  to  the  Christian  spirit  to 
judge  the  doctrine  by  the  miracles,  instead  of  judging  the  miracles  by 
the  doctrine.  Nor  did  he  perceive  how  impossible  it  is  for  a  historical 
demonstration  of  this  sort,  so  distant  from  the  facts  and  in  such  ob- 
scurity regarding  them,  never  reaching  anything  but  a  greater  or  less 
probability,  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of  a  truly  religious  faith  which 
yet  can  find  rest  only  in  absolute  certainty.  M.  de  Gasparin  entered 
the  arena  in  his  turn,  and  loftily  proclaiming  the  insufficiency  of  a 

1  Appendix  LXXXIII. 


THE  FINAL  CRISIS  223 

method  which  suspends  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion  upon  the 
uncertainties  of  a  historic  and  human  demonstration,  considered  only 
one  argument  valid :  Jesus  Christ  had  cited  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  infallible;  therefore  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  must  be 
equally  so. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  not  true  that  he  cited  all  the  Old  Testament 
books  and  thus  sanctioned  them  all;  it  is  especially  not  true  that  he  cited 
them  as  infallible,  since  he  had  in  himself  a  higher  revelation,  which  not 
only  made  him  independent  of  the  ancient  letter,  but  gave  him  the  right 
to  controvert  and  reform  it.  He  brought  out  from  it  some  luminous 
truths,  no  doubt,  but  by  the  very  fact  of  this  new  light  he  cast  into  the 
shadow  of  the  past  the  law  of  Moses.  The  example  of  Christ  proves 
the  contrary  of  what  these  writers  sought  to  deduce  from  it. 

A  third  party  appeared,  who,  unable  to  close  their  eyes  to  evidence, 
granted  the  facts  actually  proved  by  exegesis  and  criticism,  but  arbi- 
trarily limited  their  significance.  Unable  to  maintain  the  absolute  char- 
acter of  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible,  without  which  infallibility  does  not 
exist,  and  unwilling  to  break  with  the  dogma  of  authority,  these  theo- 
logians maintained  a  sort  of  indefinite  and  limited  infallibility,  a  fallible 
infallibility  which  it  is  simply  impossible  to  define.  It  is  the  sovereignty 
of  Scripture  maintained  without  liability  for  obligations.  To  appre- 
ciate the  singular  character  of  this  position,  the  position  of  what  has  been 
called  "  modern  orthodoxy  "  or  "  qualified  orthodoxy,"  we  may  picture 
to  ourselves  a  very  pious  Roman  Catholic  who  should  profess  the  infal- 
libility of  the  Pope  on  condition  of  being  permitted  to  revise  and  author- 
ise his  decisions. 

In  England  a  crisis  was  developed  at  the  same  time  and  with  even 
greater  intensity.  In  the  early  years  of  the  century  writers  of  ability 
had  begun,  side  by  side  with  the  preaching  of  the  Revival,  to  open  to 
English  thought  the  criticism  of  Lessing,  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  the 
pious  free  thought  of  Herder  and  Schleiermacher.  The  flood  of  roman- 
ticism bore  upon  its  troubled  waves  the  most  various  elements,  from  the 


224  THE  FINAL  CRISIS 

sacramentarian  mysticism  of  Oxford  Puseyism  to  the  soul  conflicts  of 
Coleridge  and  the  daring  utterances  of  Francis  Newman  and  many  other 
minds  which  had  awakened  to  doubt.  The  storm  broke,  the  separation 
took  place,  and  about  1860  a  new  situation  appeared.  The  publication 
of  the  celebrated  volume  "  Essays  and  Reviews,"  followed  by  Bishop 
Colenso's  work  on  the  Pentateuch,  stirred  up  England  almost  as  much 
as  Strauss's  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  had  moved  Germany  twenty-five  years 
before. 

The  value  of  these  two  rather  commonplace  works  does  not  explain 
the  noise  they  made  and  the  influence  they  exerted.  Their  historic  im- 
portance depends  rather  upon  the  conditions  that  produced  them.  The 
first  was  in  great  part  the  work  of  a  group  of  professors  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford,  already  the  centre  and  headquarters  of  the  Puseyite 
movement;  the  second  bore  the  name  of  a  dignitary  in  the  Anglican 
Church,  a  missionary  bishop  in  South  Africa.  Critical  theology  with 
its  analytical  method  had  notably  entered  the  Established  Church. 
Would  it  be  possible  to  expel  it  and  check  its  influence? 

The  burning  point  of  the  controversy  was  always  the  same;  the 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  the  basis  of  all  English  piety,  was  falling  to 
pieces  under  the  actual  discoveries  of  history.  In  vain  was  the  attempt 
made  to  reassure  troubled  minds  by  the  assertion  that  these  criticisms 
bore  only  upon  external  details  of  no  moral  importance.  English  com- 
mon sense  understood  perfectly  that  something  quite  different  was  in 
question,  that  in  these  exegetical  discussions  the  whole  question  of  reli- 
gious authority  was  involved ;  that  the  Bible  could  no  longer  be  read  as 
in  the  former  times,  that  a  single  one  of  its  affirmations  recognised  as 
false  or  obsolete  compelled  the  re-examination  of  all  the  others;  that 
faith  could  no  longer  be  understood  as  the  subordination  of  the  mind,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  that  it  called  for  activity  of  thought  and  freedom  of 
judgment  quite  as  much  as  humility  of  heart  and  obedience  of  will.  Since 
that  time,  the  revolution  has  made  its  way  in  England  as  elsewhere.  It 
has  crossed  the  ocean.  It  is  going  on  in  all  the  Churches  of  America, 


THE  FINAL  CRISIS  326 

whatever  their  constitution  and  symbol,  forcing  itself  everywhere,  even 
upon  those  who  repel  it,  for  the  only  weapons  with  which  it  can  be 
fought  are  those  by  which  it  has  hitherto  won  the  day. 

In  Germany,  however,  the  struggle  was  carried  on  upon  a  larger 
scale.  It  is  most  instructive  to  see  the  same  experiment,  made  under 
differing  conditions,  verifying  and  confirming  itself  wherever  it  is 
repeated. 

Biblical  criticism  inaugurated  by  Lessing  and  Semler  took  on  in  the 
German,  Swiss,  and  Dutch  Universities  an  ever  more  irresistible  momen- 
tum. With  de  Wette,  Baur,  Credner,  and  Reuss  it  became  a  purely  his- 
torical science,  a  chapter  of  literary  history  in  which  the  dogma  of 
theopneustics  no  longer  found  a  place.  The  doctrine  was  no  longer 
opposed;  it  was  eliminated. 

A  graver  symptom  was  that  the  basis  of  dogmatics  had  been  dis- 
placed. After  Schleiermacher  it  was  no  longer  the  infallible  authority 
of  the  text  of  Scripture,  as  in  the  seventeenth  century;  it  was  the  ex- 
perience of  faith,  which,  in  the  last  analysis,  rests  upon  itself.  Thus 
it  should  suffice  to  itself  and  recommend  itself  solely  by  its  moral  evidence 
and  actual  efficacy.  Strauss  in  1841  told  the  history  of  the  dogma 
of  inspiration,  and  by  the  history  itself  explained  its  dissolution  and 
registered  its  decease.1  These  evangelical  theologians  who  refused  to 
follow  him  to  the  end  were  none  the  less  obliged  to  use  a  more  and  more 
severe  historic  and  critical  method  in  refuting  him,  and  thus  they  spread 
the  pestilence  by  their  very  attempts  to  stamp  it  out.2 

Especially  instructive  is  the  history  of  Lutheran  orthodoxy,  which 
had  been  at  first  galvanised  by  the  pietistic  and  romantic  revival. 

Desiring  above  all  things  to  restore  a  system  of  authority,  it  groped 
about  for  a  principle  upon  which  to  support  it.  Now  it  clung  to  the 
Confessions  of  Faith  and  the  institutions  of  the  Church,  and  again  to 
Scripture,  unable  to  decide  to  which  finally  belonged  the  supremacy. 

1  D.  Strauss,  "  Die  chrisl.  Glaubenslehre,"  1840-41,  vol.  i.  pp.  75-353. 
'Appendix  LXXXIV. 


226  THE  FINAL  CRISIS 

Two  tendencies  in  particular  appeared,  two  mutually  opposing  and  de- 
structive theologies,  one  intrenched  in  the  University  of  Rostock,  the 
other  finding  its  citadel  in  that  of  Erlangen. 

In  the  north  of  Germany  the  important  matter  was  the  disciplinary 
and  political  point  of  view.  The  reaction  was  led  by  men  who  treated 
theology  as  lawyers  and  law  as  theologians.  At  bottom  the  advocates 
of  authority  have  only  one  argument:  the  equal  need  of  it  by  Church 
and  State  for  their  own  continued  existence.  The  question  was  no  longer 
whether  the  Confessions  of  Faith  and  the  Bible  are  infallible,  but  whether 
they  ought  to  be.  During  this  time  Hengstenberg,  to  save  the  letter  of 
the  Bible,  succeeded  in  compromising  it  by  strange  expedients  which 
his  fertile  imagination  and  varied  erudition  had  a  never-failing  supply. 
Others,  like  Stahl  or  Kliefoth,  found  it  simpler  to  submit  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Scripture  to  the  authority  of  the  sixteenth-century  Confessions 
of  Faith  and  the  constituted  ecclesiastical  authorities.  Under  pretext 
of  safeguarding  the  work  of  the  Reformation,  they  thus  ended  by  deny- 
ing its  principle  and  restoring  the  opposing  Roman  Catholic  principle, 
namely  the  subordination  of  the  Bible  to  the  official  tradition  of  the 
Church. 

In  South  Germany,  at  Erlangen,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  sought 
to  bring  the  Church  back  to  faith  and  life  by  the  sincere  culture  of  theo- 
logical science.  The  biblical  revelation  was  put  above  all  else.  But 
the  Protestant  principle,  thus  maintained  and  conscientiously  applied, 
produced  once  again  its  inevitable  consequences. 

In  the  attempt  to  correct  and  perfect  the  ancient  dogmas  in  the 
name  of  Scripture,  men  altered  them  in  important  respects  and  thus 
inevitably  fell  under  the  accusation  of  heresy.  Thomasius,  for  example, 
fundamentally  overturned  the  Christology  of  Nicaea  and  Constantinople 
by  his  theory  of  the  Kenosis,  according  to  which  the  divine  Word  in  the 
incarnation  was  really  stripped  of  its  metaphysical  attributes  and,  as 
it  were,  destroyed.  In  like  manner  Hofmann  overthrew  St.  Anselm's 
theory  of  Redemption  and  replaced  it  by  a  more  profound  and  more  bib- 


THE  FINAL  CRISIS  227 

lical  conception.  Concessions  more  and  more  important  were  made  to 
criticism  and  modern  thought.  There  were  even  some  notable  defec- 
tions. Kahnis,  who  had  at  first  been  caressed  as  the  Benjamin  of 
Lutheranism,  passed  over  one  fine  day  to  the  camp  of  independent  the- 
ology. And  more  recently  still,  the  venerable  Delitzsch,  after  having 
fought  for  forty  years  on  the  side  of  the  traditional  views  of  the  Old 
Testament,  bowed  before  Wellhausen's  criticism  and  yielded  up  to  him 
his  shattered  weapons.1 

Reference  must  here  be  made  to  the  thoroughly  subjective  notion  of 
the  "  Word  of  God  "  finally  adopted  by  Frank,  the  most  rigid  dogmatist 
of  the  Erlangen  school.  The  believer  no  longer  finds  the  assurance  of 
faith  in  an  exterior  authority,  a  divine  infallible  letter,  but  in  Christian 
experience  itself.  The  Word  of  God  is  a  word  of  man  with  all  his  in- 
firmities, ignorances,  and  errors,  but  penetrated  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
and  animated  by  his  power  of  life  and  of  salvation.  Thus  the  Word 
of  God  is  not  shut  up  within  the  limits  of  the  ecclesiastical  canon,  nor 
within  these  limits  is  it  everywhere  equally  pure  or  equally  discernible. 
Not  the  writings,  but  the  writers,  are  inspired,  and  these  according  to  the 
measure  of  their  faith.  Between  their  inspiration  and  that  of  Christians 
who  came  after  them  there  may  be  a  difference  of  degree;  there  is  no 
difference  of  kind.  Are  we  very  far  from  the  biblical  thesis  of  Scherer 
or  of  Schleiermacher?  2 

Nothing  in  Protestant  theology  could  prevail  over  the  historical 
method  and  principle.  Those  who  tried  to  arrest  the  current  sooner  or 
later  found  themselves  carried  along  by  it.  This  revolution  was  different 
from  that  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Voltaire  and  his  disciples  had  no 
more  the  historic  than  the  religious  sense.  On  the  other  hand,  a  deeper 
piety  inspires  the  new  criticism.  Prayer  accompanies  the  discussion  of 
the  texts.  What  life  is  inwardly  more  consecrated  to  the  truth  than 
that  of  de  Wette,  or  of  Baur,  Kuenen,  or  Reuss,  or  many  other  Protes- 

1 F.  Delitzsch,  "  Neuer  Kommentar  iiber  die  Genesis,"  1887. 

*  Frank,  "  System  der  christl.  Gewissheit,"  3  vols.,  3d  ed.,  1881,  etc. 


228  THE  FINAL  CRISIS 

tant  Benedictines  of  our  age,  whose  indefatigable  labour,  innocent  of 
all  lower  motive,  rises  like  a  magnificent  hymn  to  the  God  of  truth?  The 
Church  may  feel  small  concern  for  the  attacks  that  come  from  without, 
from  adversaries  who,  not  having  in  themselves  even  the  germ  of  reli- 
gious faith,  cannot  comprehend  the  dogma  which  she  puts  forth;  but 
quite  otherwise  must  it  be  when  criticism  comes  from  within,  and  when 
the  Christian  spirit  of  her  best  sons  protests  against  forms  and  ideas 
which  it  can  no  longer  accept.  Reform  then  becomes  urgent,  if  a  catas- 
trophe is  to  be  avoided. 

It  was  Richard  Rothe,  one  of  the  most  pious  of  German  theologians, 
who  took  upon  himself  the  task  of  deducing  the  conclusions  from  this 
long  history  and  drawing  up  the  final  sentence  of  the  old  theopneustic 
dogma.  Energetically  maintaining  his  faith  in  the  supernatural  char- 
acter of  the  biblical  revelation,  he  yet  freely  handled  the  text  and  the 
books  of  the  collection  itself,  giving  back  to  them  their  human  and 
historic  character.  A  miraculous  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  substi- 
tuting itself  for  the  activity  and  intellectual  responsibility  of  the  sacred 
writers,  an  oracular  infallibility  communicated  to  the  letter  of  Scripture, 
transforming  it  into  a  doctrinal  code  which  the  Christian  thinker  has 
only  to  open,  a  collection  made  and  sealed  by  God  himself  to  separate 
his  work  from  that  of  man,  were  to  him  abstract  fictions  and  vain  super- 
stitions. Therefore,  he  added,  the  ancient  dogma  is  not  to  be  in  part 
reformed,  it  should  be  abandoned  in  its  entirety.  To  hope  to  ameliorate 
it  by  attenuating  it  is  to  remain  entangled  in  intolerable  conditions. 
Sincerity  makes  this  course  a  duty,  and  logic  a  necessity.  There  is  no 
middle  term  between  the  rule  of  the  letter  and  that  of  the  Spirit.  As 
of  old,  in  the  time  of  St.  Paul,  we  must  choose  between  the  Law  and  the 
Gospel,  between  the  spirit  of  servitude  and  the  spirit  of  liberty.1 

»R.  Rothe,  "Zur  Dogmatik,"  3d  art.;  "Die  heilige  Schriften,"  3d  ed.  Vide 
Lichtenberger,  "  Hist,  des  id£es  relig.  en  AUemagne,"  etc.,  Vol.  III. 


THE  LAST  BULWARK  OF  THE  SYSTEM  229 

III 

The  Last  Bulwark  of  the  System  of  Authority 

CONSTEAINED  to  abandon  the  ancient  positions,  the  advocates  of  author- 
ity fell  back  upon  another.  If,  said  they,  infallibility  does  not  belong 
to  the  entire  collection  of  the  Bible,  it  surely  belongs  to  the  words  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Is  not  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  sent 
forth  by  his  Father,  to  be  a  Christian?  And  is  not  every  discussion  of 
the  Words  of  Jesus  Christ  a  lapse  from  Christianity  ?  For  theologians 
who  thus  reason,  there  is  no  question  of  the  moral  and  religious  authority 
by  which  Jesus  and  his  Gospel  command  the  conscience,  but  simply  of 
the  letter  of  tke  words  put  by  our  evangelists  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus ; 
and  of  their  having  been  preserved  in  a  collection  and  a  code  in  which 
infallibility  inheres,  a  body  of  notions  of  every  kind,  religious,  moral, 
scientific,  which  must  be  accepted  without  examination  or  discussion — 
with  joy  when  the  reason  is  convinced,  with  submission  when  it  is  not, 
and  even  though  it  protest. 

How  shall  we  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  this  new  position  taken 
by  the  theologians  of  authority,  far  from  being  inexpugnable,  as  they 
imagine,  has  already  been  flanked  by  criticism  and  rendered  more  diffi- 
cult to  defend  than  all  the  others  ?  A  link  is  missing  from  the  chain  of 
reasoning,  or  rather,  this  necessary  link  has  been  hopelessly  broken. 
It  serves  nothing  to  invoke  the  infallibility  of  Christ  if  the  infallibility 
of  his  first  historians  has  already  been  sacrificed  to  historic  criticism. 
Have  the  words  of  which  they  seek  to  make  a  divine  code,  binding  to 
the  intelligence  in  each  article,  been  transmitted  to  us  without  error, 
without  misapprehension  or  mixture?  If  I  must  needs  discuss  this 
preliminary  question,  it  is  clear  that  I  shall  equally  submit  to  discussion 
each  saying  of  the  Master  whose  literal  meaning  appears  to  me  obscure 
or  forced  or  inadmissible.  I  shall  come  to  doubt  whether  it  was  entirely 
understood,  or  perfectly  preserved  by  tradition ;  I  shall  ask  whether  the 
evangelists  lost  nothing  of  their  Master's  discourses  or  whether  they  did 


230  THE  LAST  BULWAKK  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

not  unconsciously  mingle  with  them  something  of  their  own  thought. 
Does  not  this  question  suggest  itself  with  regard  to  the  words  of  Christ 
as  to  the  end  of  the  world  and  his  own  near  return?  And  again,  who 
can  read  the  long  discourses  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  perceiving  their  dia- 
lectic, their  peculiar  colour  and  style,  without  attributing  a  larger  or 
smaller  part  to  the  personal  inspiration  of  the  historian  and  to  his 
theology  ? 

Unquestionably,  the  words  of  Jesus  in  the  first  three  Gospels  bear 
a  general  stamp  of  living  authenticity ;  but  if  we  go  on  to  the  letter  and 
to  details,  how  many  well-nigh  insoluble  questions  arise?  Which,  for 
example,  was  the  original  form  of  the  Beatitudes;  that  preserved  by 
Luke  or  that  given  by  Matthew?  Where  shall  we  find  the  actual  words 
of  the  institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  in  Paul  or  in  Mark?  Of  those 
passages  in  which  Jesus  predicts  the  ruin  of  Jerusalem,  which  is  the  true 
report?  Such  problems  present  themselves  on  every  page  of  the  three 
synoptic  narratives,  and  the  most  sagacious  exegetes  give  them  different 
answers.  It  is  impossible  to  reconstruct  with  certainty  the  Logia  of 
the  Lord. 

These  difficulties  can  be  very  naturally  explained  when  we  put  our- 
selves in  presence  of  the  real  history.  Jesus  spoke  an  Aramean  dialect 
which  is  now  lost.  His  words  were  always  occasional,  often  paradoxical, 
always  picturesque.  He  complained  bitterly  of  the  unintelligence  of  his 
hearers  and  even  of  his  most  intimate  disciples.  They  themselves 
acknowledged  it.1  These  discourses,  collected  at  random,  had  been  on 
the  lips  of  the  people  for  about  forty  years  in  widely  known  oral  tradi- 
tion before  being  fixed  in  writing.  They  served  as  themes  for  preach- 
ing, as  weapons  in  controversy.  They  were  translated  into  Greek  as 
occasion  required,  with  new  forms  for  which  no  one  assumed  the  respon- 
sibility.2 Such  was  their  condition  when  the  evangelists  collected  them 

1Matt.  xi.  16,  25;  Mark  iv.  12,  23-25;  Luke  xxiv.  25;  Matt.  xv.  17,  xvi.  8,  23;  Mark 
ix.  13,  32,  38;  x.  24,  38;  John  ii.  22,  iii.  10,  xvi.  12,  xiii.  7,  etc. 
*  Appendix  LXXXV. 


THE  LAST  BULWARK  OF  THE  SYSTEM  231 

for  'their  gospels  some  half  century  after  the  death  of  him  who  had 
uttered  them.  The  fundamental  harmony  of  this  triple  production 
undoubtedly  proves  the  general  authenticity  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 
and  permits  the  historian  to  grasp  with  certainty  its  master  thought 
and  true  accent,  and  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  understood  in  the  religious 
sense,  is  certain  to  live  forever,  manifesting  its  creative  virtue  through 
all  the  ages  as  in  the  earliest  years.  But,  at  the  same  time,  the  irre- 
ducible differences  and  persistent  obscurities  of  our  three  equally  canoni- 
cal texts  forever  make  it  impossible  to  frame  the  letter  of  that  infallible 
code  of  which  some  Christians  ever  dream.  "  My  words,"  said  Jesus, 
"  are  spirit  and  they  are  life."  As  to  the  spirit,  the  gospel  is  immortal ; 
as  to  the  letter,  it  is  impossible  to  effect  its  authentic  restoration. 

But  there  is  a  yet  graver  question.  In  those  words  which  histori- 
cally are  most  certainly  those  of  Jesus,  how  shall  we  not  make  a  distinc- 
tion between  those  common  ideas  which  served  as  the  framework  and 
vehicle  of  his  religious  thought  and  the  thought  itself;  between  the 
notions  which  he  had  received  from  tradition  or  the  current  opinions  of 
his  people,  and  the  original  intuitions  and  inspirations  which  sprang 
from  the  depths  of  his  consciousness?  To  communicate  the  latter  must 
he  not  have  borrowed  not  only  the  language,  but  the  general  methods  of 
expression  in  use  among  his  contemporaries?  As  Jesus  belonged  to  his 
race  by  flesh  and  blood  so  he  belonged  to  his  generation  and  his  time  by 
such  general  knowledge  as  he  might  have  of  the  world,  its  history  and 
geography,  of  the  courses  of  the  stars,  of  celestial  and  subterranean 
regions.  To  remove  Jesus  of  Nazareth  from  the  conditions  of  every 
human  existence,  to  deny  him  a  natural  development,  the  effect  of  home 
influences  and  social  education,  to  endow  him  from  the  cradle  with  all 
knowledge  and  holiness,  is  to  call  in  question  his  true  humanity ;  it  is  to 
make  him  not  divine,  but  an  impossible,  extra-natural  child,  a  being 
fantastic  and  false,  such  as  he  is  pictured  in  certain  apocryphal  gospels. 
It  is  indeed  directly  to  controvert  the  statements  of  our  Gospels,  one  of 
which  at  least  says  that  he  grew  in  wisdom  and  grace,1  while  the  others 

'Luke  iL  52. 


232  THE  LAST  BULWARK  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

paint  him  in  vivid  colours  as  a  true  Galilean  among  men  of  the  same 
blood,  the  same  language,  the  same  religious  tradition  as  himself. 

Therefore  we  must  not  be  surprised  when  very  conservative  theo- 
logians, with  Mr.  F.  Godet  at  their  head,  resolutely  break  with  the  old 
Christology  and  deny  the  infallibility  of  Jesus.  For  his  general  culture 
he  was  reduced,  like  us,  to  the  testimony  of  his  senses  and  of  men  who 
were  his  contemporaries,  and  to  national  traditions  bequeathed  by  their 
ancestors.  This  avowal,  once  made,  opens  a  breach  which  cannot  again 
be  closed.  What  may  in  future  pass  through  it  criticism  alone  can  tell. 
For  Mr.  Godet,  for  example,  the  opinions  of  Jesus  as  to  the  Mosaic  origin 
of  the  Pentateuch  or  the  Davidic  authorship  of  Psalm  ex.  are  simply 
traditional  opinions  which  leave  untouched  the  freedom  of  modern  science. 
His  son,  Mr.  Georges  Godet,  goes  a  step  further.  He  judges  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  attribute  to  Jesus  the  views  of  Newton  or  Laplace  as  to 
the  structure  of  the  universe,  and  that  he  probably  held  those  which  we 
find  in  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis.1  Next  comes  M.  Leopold  Monod, 
with  the  question  whether  the  same  reflections  do  not  apply  to  demoniac 
possession  and  demonology.2  Still  others  arise  and  point  out  that 
Jesus  had  the  same  notions  as  all  the  pious  Jews  of  his  time  as  to  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  the  imminent  end  of  the  world.  The  declaration 
of  Jesus,  "  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  never 
pass  away ! "  is  often  cited  with  triumphant  emphasis.  What  irony ! 
The  context  shows  that  these  words  refer  precisely  to  prophecies  which, 
if  the  text  has  been  correctly  preserved,  have  been  negatived  by  the 
events.  We  are  then  forced  either  to  doubt  the  literal  form  of  these 
discourses  or  to  apply  the  Saviour's  declaration  to  some  other  subject. 

Those  who  say  most  often,  and  with  most  emphasis,  "  We  do  not 
reason  with  Christ,"  in  reality  do  nothing  else,  especially  in  the  matter 
of  morals.  On  their  own  authority  they  limit  the  express  prohibition 
of  Jesus  to  take  oath.  Many  of  his  special  precepts  are  comprehensible 

1  G.  Godet,  "  Revue  de  th^ol.  de  Montauban,"  July,  1891. 
*  Leopold  Monod,  "  Le  Probleme  de  1'autorite,"  3d  ed.,  1891. 


THE  LAST  BULWARK  OF  THE  SYSTEM  233 

only  in  view  of  the  belief  that  the  world  is  about  to  come  to  an  end,  or 
applicable  only  to  a  social  organisation  like  that  of  the  Galilean  peas- 
antry. The  majority  of  Christians  feel  no  hesitation  in  setting  them 
aside  or  interpreting  them  as  paradoxes  which  must  be  adjusted  to  the 
necessities  of  modern  life. 

We  do  not  say  that  they  are  wrong,  if  their  judgment  is  influenced 
by  no  interested  motive;  we  simply  say  that  the  very  necessity  of  such 
a  process  proves  more  clearly  than  anything  else  that  it  is  impossible  to 
transform  the  words  of  Jesus  into  an  infallible  and  undebatable  code. 

Nothing  is  more  false  or  more  dangerous  than  to  reduce  his  teach- 
ings to  a  system  of  doctrines  to  be  believed  or  of  absolute  precepts  to 
be  blindly  practised.  He  himself  seems  to  have  taken  care  to  discourage 
those  of  his  disciples  who  were  tempted  thus  to  lower  his  gospel  to  the 
rank  of  a  law.  He  brought  to  the  human  spirit  not  fetters,  but  new 
powers.  He  wanted  his  disciples  to  be  free  agents,  not  passive  subjects. 
For  this  reason  he  spoke  in  popular  figures  and  similitudes.  He  would 
have  them  find  what  he  taught.  The  letter,  the  form,  were  to  him  of 
secondary  importance;  he  cared  only  for  the  spirit.  To  kindle  this 
spirit  in  the  souls  of  men,  to  impart  to  them  the  life  by  which  he  him- 
self lived,  this  was  all  his  ambition.  He  cast  abroad  his  words  of  life 
with  the  security  and  confidence  of  the  sower  who  fears  not  that  his  seed 
will  be  otherwise  lost  than  by  the  incredulity  of  frivolous  or  wicked 
hearts ;  therefore  he  never  thought  of  writing  anything,  nor  gave  any 
promise  of  special  grace  to  those  who  afterward  might  wish  to  draw  up 
the  memoirs  of  his  life.  To  believe  in  Jesus  is  an  entirely  different  thing 
in  the  thought  of  Jesus  himself  from  sharing  all  his  beliefs  or  repeating 
the  letter  of  his  discourses.  He  was  not  claiming  the  submission  or  the 
sacrifice  of  the  intelligence  when  he  demanded  faith  in  his  person  and 
message.  Those  who  maintain  this  do  not  perceive  that  they  fail  to 
recognise  the  character  and  are  changing  the  very  nature  of  the  faith 
he  requires.  He  asks  for  an  act  of  conscience  and  of  heart,  an  act  of 
religious  and  moral  initiative,  inaugurating  a  new  interior  life;  they 


234  THE  LAST  BULWARK  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

offer  an  act  of  intellectual  adhesion  which  may  prove  to  be  perfectly 
sterile.  They  confuse  faith  and  belief.  They  are  positively  outside  of 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  and  misapprehend  the  specific  content  of  his  gospel 
of  salvation.  To  believe  in  Jesus  is  an  act  which  consecrates  the  heart, 
the  conscience,  the  will,  the  whole  spirit  to  the  Heavenly  Father  whom 
Jesus  reveals  to  us ;  it  is  to  share  his  filial  piety ;  it  is  to  find  in  him  the 
Father,  with  pardon  and  eternal  life. 

No  doubt  the  Master  spoke  with  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes. 
But  this  means  that  his  authority  was  of  another  nature  and  came  from 
another  source  than  that  of  the  scribes,  who  distinctly  claimed  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  infallible  texts.  The  authority  of  Jesus  came,  not  from 
exterior  title,  but  from  the  worth  of  his  personality  and  the  intrinsic 
quality  of  his  words.  These  speak  to  the  conscience  with  self -enforcing 
power,  and,  being  received  by  faith,  they  identify  themselves  with  con- 
science itself  and  become  a  part  of  it.  They  echo  in  our  hearts  like  words 
of  God,  because  they  witness  to  themselves  as  truth,  righteousness,  and 
love.  There  is  an  infinite  distance  between  this  authority  and  the  infal- 
libility of  any  letter  whatsoever.  It  belongs  to  another  order.  We 
shall  see  this  better  by  and  by,  when  we  learn  that  the  thought  of  Jesus 
was  precisely  to  abolish  religions  of  external  authority  and  to  found  the 
inward  religion  of  the  Spirit ;  that  is,  a  direct  communion  with  God,  es- 
tablished in  the  renewed  conscience. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

WHAT    IS    THE    BIBLE  , 
I 

The  Two  Elements  of  the  Answer 

HAVING  demonstrated  at  length  what  the  Bible  is  not,  it  is  time  to  say 
what  it  is.  For  this  we  summon  the  twofold  testimony  of  history  and  of 
piety.  One  shows  its  true  origin  and  constitution,  the  other  sets  forth 
its  moral  and  religious  action  in  the  individual  soul  and  in  the  life  of 
humanity.  The  notion  which  results  from  historical  research  is  wholly 
objective;  that  which  grows  out  of  the  experiences  of  piety  is  subjective. 
From  the  synthesis  of  these  two  notions,  so  far  as  such  synthesis  may 
be  possible,  we  shall  form  the  modern  dogmatic  notion  of  the  Bible. 


The  Historic  Notion  of  the  Bible 

FROM  the  historic  point  of  view  the  Bible  represents  a  literary  fact,  or 
rather,  a  group  of  literary  facts,  which  may  and  should  be  studied  by 
a  method  analogous  to  that  which  in  the  last  century  or  more  has  made 
a  new  thing  of  the  history  of  nature.  The  modern  historic  method  is 
simply  a  form  and  special  application  of  the  method  of  impartial  and 
rigorous  observation.  When  one  is  no  longer  blinded  by  dogmatic  pre- 
possessions, and  has  learned  to  distinguish  between  objective  facts  and 
the  subjective  impressions  of  the  ego,  the  actual  reality  of  the  facts  is 
revealed  to  him  through  the  rent  veil  of  the  abstract  entities  and 
mythological  fictions  of  the  old  theology,  which  each  day  helps  to  make 
more  tenuous. 

Thus  is  it,  in  the  first  place,  with  the  text  of  the  Bible.     The  study 

236 


236  THE  HISTORIC  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE 

and  comparison  of  manuscripts  have  sufficed  to  show  that  in  none  of 
them  is  it  preserved  in  its  original  purity;  that  the  poverty  of  early 
methods  of  transmission  effected  changes  in  its  essential  constitution 
almost  as  grave  as  those  suffered  by  other  ancient  texts,  and  that  there  is 
no  other  method  of  correcting  the  biblical  texts  than  that  everywhere  else 
employed  by  scientific  paleography.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  easy  to 
see  on  what  chimeras  theologians  based  their  discussions  and  Catholic 
and  Protestant  synods  their  legislations  in  the  seventeenth  century,  con- 
cerning the  verbal  inspiration  usque  ad  literam  of  the  Scriptures,  since 
their  original  text  is  irrevocably  lost  and  can  only  be  reconstituted  by 
approximation  and  conjecture. 

By  these  means  we  establish  still  more  singular  and  important  literary 
phenomena.  In  what  condition  do  we  actually  find  the  text  of  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures  ?  Instead  of  the  homogeneity  formerly  attributed 
to  them  we  find  in  the  historic  books  a  fabric  woven  of  documents  yet 
more  ancient,  whose  vari-coloured  threads  are  easily  distinguishable, 
making  clear  that  the  Pentateuch  and  the  books  of  Joshua,  Judges, 
Samuel,  and  Kings  assumed  their  present  form  at  a  very  late  date. 
Furthermore,  what  a  medley  of  disarrangement  do  we  find  in  the  prophe- 
cies of  Isaiah,  Zechariah,  and  Jeremiah,  to  speak  only  of  those  whose 
want  of  connection  is  visible  to  the  unaided  eye !  What  is  the  Book  of 
Psalms,  if  not  the  Psalter  of  the  Jewish  synagogue,  made  up  of  hymns 
of  very  different  periods,  already  gathered  into  earlier  collections? 
What  shall  we  say  under  this  head  of  Proverbs  and  the  entire  Solomonic 
literature,  offshoots  of  which  are  found  down  to  the  second  century 
before  our  era? 

These  phenomena  are  not  confined  to  the  Old  Testament.  We  meet 
analogous  conditions  in  the  New,  especially  in  the  Gospels,  the  Acts, 
the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  and  even  in  the  Pauline  Epistles.  The  pro- 
logue of  Luke  and  the  literary  analysis  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  and 
the  Book  of  Acts  demonstrate  with  irrefragable  evidence  that  these  are 
works  of  a  second  hand,  made  up  of  the  elements  of  an  earlier  literature. 


THE  HISTORIC  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  237 

Certain  specific  facts  still  further  enlarge  the  perspective  thus  newly 
opened  of  the  origin  and  mode  of  composition  of  the  biblical  books.  We 
merely  cite  the  date  now  given  to  the  Apocalypse  of  Daniel,  and  the 
relationship  of  this  book  to  all  succeeding  apocalypses,  making  so  plain 
to  us  the  atmosphere  in  which  Jesus  lived,  the  framework  of  his  ideas,  the 
Messianic  form  of  his  consciousness,  and  the  essentially  eschatological 
character  of  his  preaching.  Then  there  is  the  affinity  of  the  recently 
discovered  Assyrian  mythology  with  the  early  ethnic  traditions  of  Israel, 
furnishing  the  starting-point  of  the  religious  evolution  of  this  people. 
And  finally  we  have  a  more  exact  knowledge  of  the  rabbinical  theology 
which  forms  the  background  of  that  of  Paul,  and  of  the  Judeo-Alex- 
andrian  theosophy,  the  method,  tendencies,  and  cardinal  ideas  which  are 
carried  into  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  beyond 
without  interruption  to  the  writings  of  Justin  Martyr,  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  and  Origen,  and  into  the  Ghristology  of  the  great  councils. 
We  are  not  here  concerned  with  more  or  less  questionable  matters  of 
detail;  the  question  is  of  a  positive  historic  method  which  has  given  a 
new  setting  to  the  old  dogmatics  and  has  accomplished  this  important 
revolution  much  more  by  its  manner  of  setting  forth  the  literary  prob- 
lems than  by  its  way  of  solving  them.  What  historian  of  the  Bible 
to-day  does  not  find  himself  compelled  not  only  to  accept  the  method, 
but  also  to  co-operate  in  it? 

Not  less  profoundly  has  the  idea  of  the  Biblical  Canon  been  modi- 
fied. Miracle  has  disappeared  from  the  history  of  the  canon  as  com- 
pletely as  from  that  of  the  text.  The  Old  Testament  Canon  is  formed 
of  three  successive  collections  of  unequal  authority,  still  recognisable 
in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  but  confused  and  intermingled  in  the  transla- 
tions. The  classification  was  made  at  an  unknown  date  by  rabbis  still 
more  unknown.  Was  there  ever  a  final,  official  closure  of  the  collection 
by  the  synagogue?  We  cannot  know.  But  one  thing  is  clearly  visible, 
the  pedagogic  intent  which  guided  those  who  first  undertook  the  task. 

The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament  only  began  to  be  fixed  in  the  time 


238  THE  HISTORIC  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE 

of  Irenaeus.  Before  that,  no  doubt,  the  books  of  the  apostolic  men 
were  collected  and  kept  with  pious  care.  They  were  read  at  meetings 
for  worship,  or  on  the  great  anniversaries.  But  these  collections  dif- 
fered in  the  different  provinces,  and  the  differences  persisted  for  cen- 
turies. Nevertheless  the  Catholic  Church,  constituting  itself  around 
Rome  as  its  capital,  tended  toward  the  unification  of  the  rule  of  faith  and 
the  catalogue  of  the  Christian  Scriptures.  Uncertainties  there  still  were ; 
a  distinction  which  dogmatics  has  since  effaced  was  established  in  the 
very  canon  between  the  homologoumena,  or  books  everywhere  accepted, 
and  the  antilogomena,  or  books  questioned  or  of  doubtful  origin. 

In  disputable  cases  the  Church  made  use  of  a  twofold  criterion. 
Was  the  book  in  conformity  with  the  traditionally  accepted  faith?  Was 
it  of  apostolic  origin  ?  Naturally  the  dogmatic  reason  took  precedence 
of  the  other.  That  which  was  orthodox  certainly  came  from  the 
apostles,  however  uncertain  or  obscure  might  be  its  true  origin.  Its 
apostolicity  was  concluded  from  its  truth  or  its  religious  utility.  Thus 
the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  a  manifest  pseudepigraph,  was  positively 
attributed  to  that  author,  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  finally  took 
its  place  among  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  although  its  style,  ideas,  method, 
and  spirit  unite  to  make  this  hypothesis  impossible.  As  the  stamp  of 
official  warrant  was  everywhere  deemed  essential,  the  canonical  authority 
of  the  Gospel  by  Mark  was  in  like  manner  justified  by  connecting  it 
with  Peter  and  that  of  the  Gospel  of  Luke  by  connecting  it  with  Paul. 
Thus  the  authority  of  the  sacred  Scriptures  and  that  of  the  apostolic 
college  were  finally  made  coincident. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  the  vicious  circle  underlying  all  reason- 
ings of  this  naturfe.  But  the  Church  in  pursuing  them  obeyed  the 
instinct  of  the  general  Christian  consciousness.  And  for  that  reason, 
no  doubt,  the  choice  at  which  she  finally  arrived  was  relatively  most 
happy,  and  merits,  if  not  the  submission  of  criticism,  at  least  the  reli- 
gious respect  of  all  Christendom. 

Nothing  can  prove  more  perfectly  than  this  history  that  the  Biblical 


THE  HISTORIC  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  239 

Canon  is  the  work  of  the  Church,  instead  of  its  foundation;  that  each 
Church  is  mistress  of  its  own  canon ;  that  Luther  was  not  presumptuous 
when  in  the  name  of  the  gospel  he  left  out  of  his,  or  at  least  placed  in 
the  second  class,  three  or  four  received  books,  and  that  the  Reformed 
Church  acted  only  within  its  right  in  drawing  up  in  the  Confession 
of  Faith  of  La  Rochelle  its  own  list  of  canonical  books,  the  authority 
of  which  was  in  its  mind  founded  less  upon  the  testimony  of  a  human 
tradition  than  upon  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  At  the  same  time  we  can 
see  into  what  an  irreconcilable  inconsistency  every  Protestant  Church 
falls,  when,  owning  itself  fallible,  it  seeks  to  corrects  its  human  falli- 
billity  by  proclaiming  as  its  fundamental  dogma  the  external  infallibility 
of  the  biblical  canon  which  it  has  itself  constituted. 

In  the  light  of  history  the  books  in  their  turn  take  on  a  new  signifi- 
cation. The  historic  method  applies  to  them  the  process  and  rules  of 
interpretation  which  have  everywhere  else  been  accepted.  It  starts  from 
the  principle  that  every  literary  production  belongs  to  its  time  and  sur- 
roundings, and  can  be  understood  only  by  being  restored  to  them.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  misconceiving  or  doubting  the  originality  or  inspira- 
tion of  these  writers,  but  of  determining  the  intellectual  and  social  hori- 
zon, the  circle  of  ideas,  the  series  of  different  circumstances,  which  con- 
ditioned their  first  appearance  and  consequently  explain  their  special 
character  and  true  bearing.  Considered  from  this  point  of  view  the  old 
Hebrew  literature  no  longer  hangs  in  the  air,  a  series  of  miraculously 
given  oracles.  The  individual  books  become  facts  woven  into  the  very 
fabric  of  history.  They  bring  to  it  added  witness,  being  its  religious 
fruits.  The  general  law  that  a  literature  must  be  the  expression  of 
society,  that  it  must  proceed  from  the  soul  of  a  people  and  from  the 
drama  of  its  history,  has  been  found  true  both  for  the  literature  of  the 
Hebrews  and  for  that  of  the  first  Christian  ages.  It  remains  only  to 
establish  as  accurately  as  possible  the  relative  chronology  of  the  books, 
in  order  to  reconstruct  the  general  course  of  religious  evolution  to  which 
they  testify. 


I 

240  THE  RELIGIOUS  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE 

The  biblical  criticism  of  to-day  is  not  only  an  introduction  to  the 
Bible,  it  is  a  chapter  of  literary  history,  naturally  taking  its  place  in  the 
general  history  of  religious  literature,  or,  more  correctly,  in  the  uni- 
versal history  of  the  religion  of  humanity. 

The  conclusion  of  all  these  studies  is  simple  and  clear:  so  far  as 
history  is  concerned,  the  Bible  is  a  collection  of  historical  documents  which 
give  positive  evidence  for  the  special  religious  evolution  of  which  they  are 
the  product. 

Ill 

The  Religious  Notion  of  the  Bible 

THE  historical  and  literary  questions  implicated  in  the  Bible  have  been 
and  still  are  so  fully  and  vehemently  discussed  only  because  behind  them 
lie  questions  infinitely  more  grave,  involving  the  future  of  the  moral 
and  religious  life  of  humanity.  Criticism  and  exegesis  may  more  or 
less  successfully  reconstruct  the  character  and  sequence  of  the  religious 
phenomena  of  history.  But  what  is  the  moral  value  of  these  phenomena, 
what  the  importance  of  their  history  for  the  human  conscience,  how  are 
we  to  judge  of  the  religion  of  the  Bible?  These  are  new  questions  which 
infinitely  transcend  the  scope  and  competence  of  the  historic  method. 
They  address  themselves  to  all  that  is  deepest  and  most  earnest  in  man, 
to  his  religious  and  moral  consciousness,  and  the  testimony  of  this  con- 
sciousness we  must  now  consider. 

This  testimony  is  of  an  order  quite  other  than  scientific.  It  is  of  the 
order  of  holiness.  Holiness  has  its  intuitions,  its  judgments,  and  experi- 
ences. But  there  is  a  danger  in  formulating  them,  because  in  translat- 
ing them  into  intellectual  propositions  we  incur  the  risk  of  altering  or 
at  least  of  masking  their  true  nature,  of  opening  the  door  to  the  ques- 
tions of  intellectualism  when,  as  Pascal  says,  it  is  the  heart  that  is  their 
judge.  I  mean  that  instead  of  reasoning  we  have  here  to  live,  to  experi- 
ence, and  to  test. 

The  conviction  that  human  life  is  a  serious  thing,  that  it  is  so  only  by 


THE  RELIGIOUS  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  241 

the  consecration  of  the  entire  being  to  duty,  that  the  history  of  humanity 
is  the  history  of  its  moral  education,  that  it  has  a  purpose,  and  conse- 
quently, laws,  is  not  the  result  of  scientific  demonstration,  but  an  act  of 
moral  energy,  which  must  be  performed  under  penalty  of  resigning  one's 
self  to  universal  vanity  and  spiritual  death.  When  one  is  in  the  state  of 
mind  which  may  properly  be  called  moral  piety,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
be  struck  by  the  nature  and  power  of  that  spirit  of  holiness  which  created 
the  history  of  Israel,  the  life  and  work  of  Christ,  and  in  them  reveals 
itself.  There,  amid  the  shadows  and  sorrows  of  the  times  and  the  race, 
is  a  succession  of  men  of  God,  each  the  spiritual  father  of  the  other, 
and  all  together  creating  in  the  bosom  of  humanity  the  high  religion 
of  the  spirit.  Their  history  is  the  history  of  God  himself  taking  pos- 
session of  the  human  soul,  becoming  the  inmate  of  the  human  conscious- 
ness to  such  an  extent  as  in  the  consciousness  of  Christ  to  be  identified 
with  it.  Christ  is  the  culmination  of  this  divine  history,  because  in 
him  history  finds  its  perfect  work.  Whoever,  therefore,  shall  analyse 
the  essential  and  permanent  foundation — I  do  not  say  of  the  conscience 
of  the  Church,  but  of  the  modern  conscience — such  as  eighteen  centuries 
of  Christian  civilisation  have  made  it,  will  discover  its  distinctive  features 
and  essential  elements  to  be  those  of  the  conscience  of  Christ  himself. 
No,  the  Christ  did  not  come  unavailingly  into  the  world.  Every  soul 
that  attains  to  a  high  moral  and  religious  life  bears  his  mark.  The 
moral  world  in  which  we  live  is  his  work,  and  none  may  rebel  against  the 
intuitions,  laws,  aspirations,  sufferings,  of  this  new  world;  none  may 
escape  or  evade  them  without  the  consciousness  of  a  moral  fall. 

This  is  the  profound  explanation  of  the  religious  and  moral  action 
of  the  Bible  upon  the  Christian  consciousness.  It  is  this  persistently 
creative  and  stimulating  action  upon  the  moral  life  which  gives  it  author- 
ity. Its  authority  is  wholly  spiritual;  it  depends,  not  upon  the  letter, 
but  the  spirit  of  the  Scriptures,  and  appeals  to  the  mind  and  heart. 
It  is  freely  accepted,  because  it  exists  only  so  far  as  it  becomes  one  with 
the  experiences  or  the  present  aspirations  of  piety.  It  has  no  more 


242  THE  RELIGIOUS  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE 

need  of  official  verification,  of  outward  attestation,  than  the  light  which 
enlightens  the  eye,  or  the  duty  which  commands  the  conscience,  or  the 
beauty  which  ravishes  the  imagination.  The  efficacy  of  the  divine  word 
is  at  once  the  inward  sign,  the  measure,  and  the  foundation  of  its 
authority. 

It  is  neither  permitted  nor  possible  to  identify  the  Bible  with  the 
revelation  of  God  in  the  life  of  humanity,  for  this  revelation,  in  its  pro- 
gressive development  in  history,  is  universal  and  permanent;  it  can- 
not be  shut  up  in  any  document  or  any  special  institution.  But  since 
the  revelation  to  Israel  was  more  evident  and  of  a  higher  character  than 
any  other,  in  the  preaching  of  the  prophets,  of  Christ  and  of  his  apostles, 
the  Bible  is  by  no  means  to  be  separated  from  it ;  it  makes  a  part  of  it, 
since  the  preaching  itself  constituted  it.  We  may  therefore  say  that 
the  Bible  continues  and  perpetually  maintains  the  revelation  of  God  in 
the  souls  of  men,  keeping  it  fresh  and  strong  by  its  primitive  simplicity. 

Thus  the  Bible,  drawing  its  authority  from  its  own  efficacy,  has  in 
itself  the  means  of  making  itself  immediately  recognised  by  the  soul 
that  is  athirst  for  righteousness  and  truth.  At  the  secret  contact  of  the 
conscience  with  holiness  a  moral  evidence  is  called  into  being  which  is 
essentially  the  witness  of  the  Divine  Spirit  with  the  human  spirit.  The 
Reformers  made  the  mistake  of  applying  the  inward  witness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  a  mass  of  literary  and  historical  questions  with  which  it  has 
nothing  to  do,  and  for  this  reason  their  dogmatic  has  not  escaped  the 
reproach  of  fanaticism  and  illuminism ;  but  restricted  to  the  sanctifying 
action  of  the  Bible,  I  mean  of  its  essential  spirit,  no  witness  can  be  more 
trustworthy.  It  is  as  legitimate  as  the  influence  of  the  moral  imperative 
upon  the  honest  conscience,  and  no  more  mystical  than  that. 

Christians  may  deceive  themselves,  and  they  often  do  deceive  them- 
selves, when  they  reason  from  their  inward  experiences  to  the  causes  that 
produced  them,  or  the  doctrinal  conclusions  that  flow  from  them.  But 
these  experiences  remain  none  the  less  moral  facts,  bearing  eloquent  wit- 
ness to  the  power  of  the  Bible.  What  other  book  like  this  can  awaken 


THE  RELIGIOUS  NOTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  243 

dumb  or  sleeping  consciences,  reveal  the  secret  needs  of  the  soul,  sharpen 
the  thorn  of  sin  and  press  its  cruel  point  upon  us,  tear  away  our 
delusions,  humiliate  our  pride,  and  disturb  our  false  serenity?  What 
sudden  lightnings  it  shoots  into  the  abysses  of  our  hearts!  What 
searchings  of  conscience  are  like  those  which  we  make  by  this  light  ?  And 
when  we  have  gained  a  right  apprehension  of  our  shortcomings  and 
spiritual  poverty,  when  the  need  c  f  pardon,  the  hunger  for  righteous- 
ness, and  the  thirst  for  life  torture  the  soul  to  desperation,  what  other 
voice  than  that  of  the  Son  of  man  has  power  to  allay  our  pain,  convince 
us  of  the  love  of  the  Father,  the  love  that  passeth  knowledge,  in  which  all 
shame  and  remorse  are  swallowed  up,  and  the  flame  of  a  holy  life  is 
kindled  in  the  soul?  The  word  which  pierced  us  like  a  sharp  sword 
now  sheds  itself  like  balm  over  all  our  wounds,  like  consolation  over  all 
our  sorrows.  It  becomes  a  source  of  inward  joy,  a  strength  for  life, 
and  a  hope  which  shines  beyond  death  itself.  These  experiences,  more- 
over, are  facts.  This  light  shining  into  the  darkness  of  the  inner  life 
is  a  fact;  this  repentance  and  confusion,  this  spiritual  new  birth,  these 
aspirations  toward  goodness  and  toward  God,  this  shame  of  hidden  sin, 
this  thirst  for  eternal  life,  are  facts.  The  power  which  produces  such 
effects  is  also  a  fact.  The  word  which  draws  us  so  irresistibly  to  God 
and  so  invincibly  attaches  us  to  him  can  come  from  none  but  him.  And 
it  does  not  depend  upon  any  particular  dogma.  Some  who  have  passed 
through  these  moral  experiences  have  found  no  difficulty  in  following 
to  the  end  the  results  and  consequences  of  historic  criticism,  and  abandon- 
ing the  supernatural  notion  of  the  Bible,  yet  have  none  the  less  preserved 
for  the  Bible  an  indestructible  sentiment  of  tender  respect  and  religious 
veneration. 

Such  is  the  inspiration  which  piety  feels  and  finds  in  Holy  Scripture. 
It  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  infallibility  of  the  letter.  It  is  a 
power  of  life  which  makes  itself  recognised  as  such,  because  it  gives  life. 
It  requires  and  implies  neither  perfection  of  form  nor  the  magic  of 
miracle  nor  any  official  investiture  of  its  instruments.  Piety  has  not 


244          AN  ATTEMPT  AT  SYNTHESIS 

the  slightest  concern  for  the  things  that  preoccupy  the  theologians  who 
are  building  it  up  on  human  authority.  It  is  not  scandalised  by  the 
halting  language  of  prophet  or  apostle,  nor  by  the  legendary  character 
of  some  narratives,  nor  by  the  vices  of  this  or  that  method  of  reasoning. 
On  the  contrary,  in  its  eyes  the  excellency  of  the  treasure  shines  forth 
all  the  more  brightly  as  its  casket  is  the  more  uncomely;  it  enjoys  the 
divine  liquor  without  care  for  the  clay  which  holds  it.  Has  it  not  in 
itself  the  touchstone  which  makes  known  the  value  of  the  treasure,  and 
does  not  the  life-giving  fragrance  of  the  liquor  reveal  its  origin? 

This  experience  of  the  Christian  is  expanded  and  confirmed  in  the 
age-long  experience  of  the  Church.  All  Christian  communions  have 
adhered  to  the  Bible  in  order  to  remain  in  contact  with  the  original 
source  of  their  religious  life.  If  some  of  them,  like  the  Roman  Catholic 
and  Orthodox  [Greek]  Churches,  have  without  denying  it  put  their 
traditions  above  its  authority,  if  they  have  thus  relegated  it  to  the 
shadow,  they  have  not  escaped  an  equal  detriment  to  liberty  of  con- 
science and  to  that  sound  integrity  which  is  the  life  of  piety.  Wherever 
the  Bible  is  held  in  honour  it  remains  the  safeguard  of  Christian  liberty, 
an  ever-living  agent  of  reformation,  a  power  for  progress  and  for  life. 

History  sees  in  the  Bible  a  collection  of  historic  documents,  and  this 
is  no  crime  on  its  part.  Individual  and  collective  piety  reads  in  these 
documents  a  divine  history,  it  perceives  in  them  a  "  Word  of  God  " ; 
and  none  can  dispute  the  validity  of  this  experience  without  calling  in 
question  the  value  of  the  moral  life  itself,  whether  in  its  deepest  roots 
or  its  purest  and  most  lofty  manifestations. 

IV 

An  Attempt  at  Synthesis 

FROM  the  synthesis  of  the  historic  notion  and  the  religious  notion  we 
should  be  able  to  draw  the  dogmatic  definition  of  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture. The  reconciliation  of  the  two,  however,  is  neither  spontaneous  nor 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  SYNTHESIS          245 

immediate.  Springing  from  two  very  different  mental  operations,  re- 
sponding to  needs  of  different  nature,  they  stand  over  against  one  another 
in  seeming  mutual  contradiction,  as  is  often  the  case  when  scientific 
theses  first  come  in  contact  with  moral  theses.  The  devout  heart  over- 
leaps the  normal  and  uniform  play  of  second  causes,  divines  and  every- 
where predicates  the  presence  of  God,  for  the  invincible  reason  that 
in  itself  it  has  immediate  consciousness  of  him.  But  scientific  observa- 
tion, excluding  from  its  domain  all  search  after  the  first  cause,  recognises 
nowhere  any  special  and  distinct  act  in  the  historic  nexus  of  events. 
Thus  the  two  orders,  instead  of  tending  to  harmony,  appear  to  diverge 
more  and  more  widely.  Yet  shall  science  forbid  faith  to  adore? 

To  reconcile  the  two  is  the  task  of  modern  Christian  thought.  It 
will  not  be  accomplished  in  a  day  nor  by  any  single  man.  But  far  from 
reconciliation  being  impossible  or  chimerical,  the  question,  in  so  far  as 
Scripture  is  concerned,  has  in  these  last  days  made  a  long  step  toward 
solution.  The  solution  will  appear  more  clearly  when  the  last  remnants 
of  the  old  dogma  of  verbal  inspiration  and  supernatural  canon  shall 
have  been  cleared  away  from  the  dogmatic  field.  This  ancient  dogma 
from  which  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  was  deduced  can  in  no  case  be 
rehabilitated,  for  it  implies  a  double  miracle,  which  criticism  has  shown 
to  be  a  double  historic  fiction. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  important  that  both  faith  and  criticism 
should  come  to  a  more  distinct  consciousness  of  their  rights  and  their 
limits.  Conflicts  break  out  between  them  only  because  each  inconsid- 
erately trespasses  upon  the  territory  of  the  other.  Both  the  religious 
and  the  scientific  spirit  need  educating.  The  war  between  them  is  abat- 
ing in  proportion  as  this  education  makes  progress.  Already  their  har- 
mony upon  many  points  is  becoming  evident. 

Upon  the  question  of  the  biblical  canon  the  testimony  of  both  is 
identical.  The  data  of  history  and  of  piety  are  reciprocally  coincident 
and  confirmatory.  Criticism  demonstrates  that  at  least  in  the  begin- 
ning the  catalogue  of  the  sacred  books  had  no  fixed  limits.  Piety  is 


246  AN  ATTEMPT  AT  SYNTHESIS 

continually  ascertaining  and  treasuring  up  that  which  for  it  is  the 
"  Word  of  God  "  outside  of  as  well  as  within  the  present  limits  of  the 
sacred  canon.  It  finds  more  edification  in  the  book  of  Maccabees  than 
in  the  story  of  Esther  or  of  Samson.  The  inspiration  of  the  Epistle 
of  Polycarp  appears  to  it  more  truly  apostolic  than  that  of  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter. 

Historical  criticism  shows  the  variety  of  the  books  of  the  Bible;  it 
ascertains  those  differences  of  date  and  authorship,  of  ideas  and  of  inten- 
tions, of  matter  and  of  form,  which  make  them  to  differ ;  it  makes  clear 
that  they  vary  widely  as  to  religious  and  moral  development.  But  the 
piety  of  the  unlearned,  guided  solely  by  its  instincts,  ascertains  the  same 
facts.  The  new  theology  is  greatly  reproached  for  making  these  dis- 
tinctions in  the  traditional  Bible,  but  every  Christian  without  hesitation 
or  scruple  does  the  same  thing  as  a  matter  of  practice.  He  always  turns 
to  those  parts  of  Scripture  which  build  up  his  faith  and  comfort  his 
sorrow,  and  passes  by  those  which  are  only  dry  and  sterile  ground.  Not 
more  for  practical  piety  than  for  enlightened  thought  is  the  Bible  of 
the  Churches  identical  with  the  "  Word  of  God." 

It  is  another  error  to  say  that  piety  needs  an  outward  attestation, 
a  miracle,  in  order  to  recognise  and  accept  this  divine  word.  The 
gospel  appears  to  it  no  less  divine  and  salutary  after  the  historic  study 
of  the  traditions  about  the  birth  of  Christ  has  proved  to  it  that  no  posi- 
tive conclusion  can  be  reached  as  to  the  way  in  which  Christ  came  into  the 
world.  John  the  Baptist  did  no  miracle.  Was  he  the  less  a  prophet? 
Jesus  proclaimed  him  as  the  greatest  of  all  prophets.  We  know  nothing 
of  Amos  or  Isaiah  except  their  preaching.  When  they  move  our  con- 
sciences, do  we  for  this  reason  less  surely  discover  in  them  the  presence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit? 

From  the  historic  and  literary  point  of  view  the  Bible  presents  itself 
as  nothing  else  than  what  in  other  cases  we  call  a  great  classic  literature. 
The  Old  Testament  is  the  classic  literature  of  Judaism,  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  the  classic  literature  of  Christianity.  Just  as  a  literature  of 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  SYNTHESIS  247 

this  class  is  the  finished  expression  of  a  nation's  genius,  so  the  Bible  is 
the  cogent  expression  of  two  spirits,  of  Israel  and  of  nascent  Chris- 
tianity. Do  we  need  any  other  reason  to  explain  its  charm  and  its  irre- 
sistible influence?  Piety  asks  for  nothing  more  than  the  substantial 
nutriment  it  finds  here.  It  is  true  that  a  classic  literature  is  only  rela- 
tively perfect,  and  that,  being  a  human  creation,  it  shares  the  condition 
and  destiny  of  human  things.  Inevitably  it  ages,  and  that  increasingly, 
and  in  the  process  it  becomes  in  many  respects  unadapted  to  the  con- 
science of  the  generations  which  come  long  after  it.  A  discord  results ; 
it  does  not  exclude  veneration,  but  it  does  prevent  servitude.  Time  and 
surroundings  must  be  taken  into  account.  Adaptation  becomes  neces- 
sary. Thus  critical  reflection  teaches  us;  thus  piety  instinctively 
does.  No  Christian,  however  conservative  he  may  imagine  himself  to 
be,  reads  the  Bible  to-day  without  taking  some  things  and  leaving  some ; 
without  subjecting  the  ancient  text  to  some  sort  of  translation,  more 
or  less  thorough,  without  which  he  would  soon  find  that  it  had  ceased  to 
help  him. 

The  letter  of  the  Bible,  then,  is  no  longer  the  infallible  rule  of  reli- 
gious thought,  the  oracle  of  absolute  and  eternal  truth.  Yet  none  the 
less  does  the  Bible  continue  to  discharge  a  double  and  essential  function 
in  the  life  of  churches,  families,  and  individuals.  It  is  no  longer  a  code, 
but  it  remains  a  testimony;  it  is  no  longer  a  law,  but  it  is  a  means  of 
grace.  It  does  not  prescribe  the  scientific  formulas  of  faith,  but  it  does 
remain  the  historic  fountain  of  Christian  knowledge. 

1.  The  Function  of  the  Bible  as  a  historic  document.  The  religion 
of  the  gospel  had  its  prologue  and  preparation  in  the  moral  and  religious 
life  of  Israel,  without  which  the  gospel  could  not  have  been  understood. 
Interrogated  with  discernment  by  criticism  and  exegesis,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment gives  evidence  of  this  historic  preparation,  makes  it  possible  to 
grasp  its  true  nature  and  progress,  and  serves  as  the  indispensable  intro- 
duction to  the  New.  The  form  of  the  religious  experience  wrought  in 


248  AN  ATTEMPT  AT  SYNTHESIS 

the  souls  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  determined  that  of  the  religious  experi- 
ence which  was  wrought  out  and  perfected  in  the  souls  of  Christ  and  his 
first  disciples. 

The  New  Testament  is  the  authentic  and  sincere  expression  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  freshness  of  its  earliest  days.  It  gives  us  a  clear  idea 
of  the  essence  of  the  gospel,  enables  us  to  discern  it  with  accuracy,  and 
thus  to  apprehend  it  in  its  pristine  truth.  It  is  the  first  link,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  Christian  tradition ;  but  because  it  is  the  first,  this  link  dominates 
all  that  follow.  No  single  Church  could  give  up  the  Bible  thus  under- 
stood, without  cutting  itself  off  from  communion  with  the  original  source 
of  its  life.  Thus  the  witness  becomes  a  judge,  for  it  makes  possible  a 
judgment  of  the  value  of  all  subsequent  forms  of  the  tradition.  The 
historic  document  which  attests  the  nature  of  the  essence  of  Christianity 
at  its  beginning  is  still  the  surest  defence  against  Catholic  traditionalism. 
In  vain,  for  example,  does  the  Church  of  Rome  insist  that  the  worship 
of  the  Virgin  and  the  Saints,  auricular  confession,  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Mass,  the  supremacy  of  Peter,  are  matters  of  faith,  essential  to  the 
Christian  religion  and  essential  to  salvation.  So  long  as  they  were  un- 
known or  disputed  in  this  first  age,  Catholic  dogmatism  hangs  baseless 
in  the  air,  unless  it  should  be  maintained  that  the  apostles  and  Christ 
himself  did  not  preach  the  whole  Gospel  of  Salvation ;  and  it  may  be  con- 
sidered as  remaining  outside  of  the  Christian  religion  itself. 

This  historic  document  none  the  less  guards  us  against  the  illusions 
and  dreams  of  private  inspiration.  Apart  from  history,  inspiration  is 
lost  in  the  limitless  fields  of  fancy.  It  has  neither  compass  nor  rudder. 
In  vain  the  mystagogues  and  illuminati  appeal  to  the  inward  witness  of 
the  Spirit.  The  Christian  spirit  can  be  nothing  other  than  the  Spirit 
of  Christ.  Psychologically  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  is  nothing  else  than 
the  assurance  of  the  gospel,  believed  and  experienced  in  the  heart.  But 
the  gospel  came  to  us  by  historical  tradition.  We  did  not  invent  it;  it 
was  preached,  that  is,  given,  to  us.  Assuredly  Christian  inspiration 
never  ceases  to  draw  from  it  an  indefinite  progression  of  action  and  of 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  SYNTHESIS  249 

thought ;  but  without  ever  breaking  the  historic  continuity  which  joins 
it  to  its  origin. 

2.  Function  of  the  Bible  as  a  means  of  grace.  It  not  only  makes 
us  know  historically  the  religious  experience  wrought  out  in  the  soul 
of  Christ  and  of  his  immediate  disciples,  but  it  begets  and  continues  a 
line  of  disciples,  a  tradition  of  life,  by  repeating  the  same  experience  in 
each  successor.  It  not  only  reveals  life,  it  propagates  it.  It  is  only  a 
preaching,  and  a  human  preaching  of  the  gospel,  but  it  dates  from  an 
epoch  of  creative  inspiration,  artless  popular  faith,  and  burning  fer- 
vour. It  is  altogether  the  most  simple  and  the  most  sublime  preaching, 
most  meagre  in  form,  most  efficacious  in  power.  The  Holy  Spirit 
breathes  through  and  animates  its  least  important  pages.  The  "  Word 
of  God  " — I  mean  that  word  which  arouses  the  conscience  and  gives  it 
peace,  which  pardons  and  sanctifies,  reproves  and  consoles — speaks 
through  it  with  an  accent  which  the  devout  heart  hears  nowhere  else. 
Piety  ever  returns  to  it  and  never  wearies  of  it.  Protestantism  is  there- 
fore fully  justified,  after  giving  up  the  vain  attempt  to  make  an  infal- 
lible oracle  of  the  Bible,  in  guarding  for  it  the  place  of  honour  which  it 
took  in  the  sixteenth  century  and  from  which  no  one  can  ever  depose  it. 
As  said  the  man  of  all  men  perhaps  most  vigorously  opposed  to  the 
inspiration  and  authority  of  the  letter,  Edmond  Scherer,  "  The  Bible  will 
ever  be  the  book  of  power,  the  marvellous  book,  the  book  above  all  others. 
It  will  ever  be  the  light  of  the  mind  and  the  bread  of  the  soul.  Neither 
the  superstitions  of  some  nor  the  irreligious  negations  of  others  have 
been  able  to  do  it  harm.  If  there  is  anything  certain  in  the  world,  it  is 
that  the  destinies  of  the  Bible  are  linked  with  the  destinies  of  holiness 
on  earth."  * 

»E.  Scherer,  "  Ce  que  c'est  que  la  Bible,"  Rev.  de  TMol,  Strasburg,  vol.  ix.  p.  377. 


250  CONCLUSION 

V 

Conclusion 

IT  needed  only  to  narrate  the  long  and  tempestuous  elaboration  of  the 
Catholic  and  the  Protestant  dogmas  of  authority  to  show  them  both 
crumbling  away  under  the  triple  protest  of  history,  the  reason,  and  the 
Christian  consciousness.  The  first  rests  on  a  political,  the  second  on  a 
literary  fiction.  Both  are  the  fruit  of  an  exaggerated  and  misunder- 
stood craving  for  authority,  and  a  formal  and  abstract  logic,  deducing 
from  an  a  priori  postulate,  not  that  which  is,  but  that  which  ought  to 
be.  A  diplomatic  and  utilitarian  argument  is  at  the  basis  of  all  these 
systems  of  authority.  The  tribunal  is  declared  infallible,  not  because 
it  actually  is  such,  but  because  there  is  need  that  it  should  be  such.  Men 
do  not  observe  what  the  Church  is  in  its  actual  concrete  history ;  they  do 
not  see  it  compounded  of  good  and  evil,  now  fervent  and  heroic,  now 
ambitious  and  yielding  to  the  grossest  superstitions ;  always  in  its  faith, 
its  catechisms,  and  its  worship  mingling  the  gospel  of  Christ  with  the 
changing  conceptions  of  the  century  through  which  it  is  passing.  They 
place  it  outside  of  the  unescapable  conditions  of  every  human  institu- 
tion and  make  it  a  pure  abstraction,  a  metaphysical  entity  which  is  first 
deified  and  then  used  as  a  formidable  instrument  of  religious  tyranny. 
So  with  the  Bible.  Men  do  not  study  the  real  Bible,  they  do  not  con- 
sider the  extremely  diverse  phenomena  which  it  presents,  the  dead  or 
superannuated  ideas  and  customs,  the  concrete  diversity  of  the  books 
and  the  inspirations  which  meet  in  it;  they  identify  it  immediately  with 
the  very  revelation  of  God.  It  is  no  longer  a  human  book,  it  is  an  ab- 
stract entity  of  which  they  make  an  idol,  before  which  they  prostrate 
themselves  and  seek  to  prostrate  reason  and  conscience,  as  if  they  would 
convince  themselves  of  the  reality  of  its  authority  by  the  very  excess  of 
the  superstition  with  which  they  surround  it,  and  especially  by  the  excess 
of  energy  with  which  they  maintain  its  authority. 

Yet  between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  there  is  this  difference, 


CONCLUSION  251 

that  one  has  succeeded  where  the  other  has  failed.  The  Catholic  system 
of  authority  has  at  last  established  and  completed  itself  by  the  Vatican 
decree.  The  Protestant  system  of  authority  has  forever  broken  down. 
But  we  must  not  judge  of  these  events  by  appearances.  When  we  go  to 
the  bottom  of  things  the  relations  are  reversed;  Catholicism  is  dying 
of  its  victory,  while  Protestantism  is  finding  in  its  apparent  defeat  a 
means  of  salvation  and  a  renewal  of  its  youth. 

It  was  to  maintain  peace  and  unity  in  Christendom  that  the  Roman 
Church  laid  emphasis  upon  the  infallibility  of  its  tradition  and  the  divine 
origin  of  the  power  of  its  bishops.  Never  was  purpose  more  ill  at- 
tained nor  hope  more  greatly  disappointed.  The  peace  of  the  Church, 
maintained  by  excommunications  meekly  sanctioned  by  the  power  of  the 
State,  was  only  a  series  of  bloody  executions  and  irremediable  ruptures. 
Is  there  in  the  religious  annals  of  humanity  a  darker  page  than  the 
history  of  the  persecutions,  massacres,  and  scaffolds  which  follow  in  un- 
interrupted succession  from  the  destruction  of  the  Donatists  in  Africa 
to  the  proscription  of  the  Huguenots  in  France?  What  a  concert  of 
groaning  voices,  of  martyr  plaints  and  rebellious  protests,  went  up 
during  this  period  of  twelve  centuries  from  Constantine  to  Louis  XIV, 
calling  earth  and  heaven  to  witness  the  cruel  effects  of  the  religious 
tyranny  of  Rome !  Was  ever  altar  more  copiously  watered  with  innocent 
blood  than  the  altar  of  this  Christian  Moloch  whose  name  was  Catholic 
Unity?  And  what  was  the  result  of  this  policy  of  authority?  Was 
unity  at  least  saved? 

In  the  early  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  Christendom  was  split  into 
two  nearly  equal  parts,  and  since  then  all  the  efforts  of  the  most  per- 
severing and  subtile  diplomacy  have  been  powerless  to  bring  together 
the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches.  The  same  authoritative  and  intransigent 
policy,  the  same  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  brought  about 
a  new  scission.  The  Western  Church  was  in  its  time  cut  in  two.  Half 
of  Europe  drew  away  from  Rome  and  became  Protestant.  From  that 
time  each  triumph  of  the  Papal  authority  has  caused  damage  to  the 


252  CONCLUSION 

Catholic  Church,  a  loss  of  its  internal  liberties,  a  diminution  of  vitality 
and  spiritual  strength.  In  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  the  exter- 
mination of  Jansenism;  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  the  end  of 
Gallicanism.  Neither  St.  Bernard  nor  Gerson,  nor  yet  Bossuet,  would 
be  tolerated  in  the  Church  to-day  without  an  act  of  submission.  The 
council  of  the  Vatican,  which  finally  concentrated  the  infallible  tradition 
and  absolute  authority  in  the  person  of  the  Pope,  made  a  still  wider 
moral  hiatus  in  the  Church.  After  having  broken  with  half  Christen- 
dom, the  Catholicism  of  the  Syllabus  succeeded — at  least  in  those  coun- 
tries which  are  nominally  its  own — in  breaking  with  modern  culture,  with 
the  principles  of  public  law  accepted  by  all  civilised  nations,  with  the 
scientific  method  and  the  most  legitimate  aspirations  of  the  conscience. 
No  doubt  the  Catholic  principle  has  triumphed  within  the  Church,  but 
without  it  has  destroyed  itself  by  its  own  excesses,  and  no  longer  appears 
to  minds  having  a  degree  of  liberal  culture  as  anything  but  a  spectre 
of  the  past.  The  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  was  still-born, 
for  no  one  thinks  of  considering  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  religious 
history  and  philosophy.  The  majority  even  of  those  who  accept  it  omit 
it  by  preterition;  for  the  others  it  is  only  a  sort  of  law  of  politics  or 
social  decorum,  which  it  would  show  as  much  bad  taste  to  contradict 
as  intellectual  simplicity  to  take  seriously. 

In  Protestantism  the  attempt  to  build  up  a  system  of  authority  could 
not  succeed  because  it  was  vitiated  by  a  radical  inconsistency.  Therefore 
the  work  of  those  who  conducted  it  resembles  the  sand  heaps  which  chil- 
dren make  when  they  think  to  carry  the  top  higher  by  piling  on  it  the 
sand  which  they  pull  out  from  below.  The  critical  spirit  in  religion 
was  twin-born  with  the  Reformation.  If  the  gospel  is  the  basis  of  Prot- 
estantism, free  inquiry  is  its  necessary  form.  It  cannot  give  up  either 
without  committing  suicide. 

With  Luther  and  Calvin  the  Christian  conscience  was  definitively 
recognised  as  autonomous.  It  can  never  again  retrace  its  steps  nor  again 
take  on  the  yoke.  The  idea  of  setting  up  in  Protestantism  an  external 


CONCLUSION  253 

infallible  authority  is  only  a  survival  of  the  principle  which  was  defeated 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  We  should  not  be  surprised  at  these  relapses 
nor  anticipate  their  long  duration.  In  the  time  and  countries  where 
reaction  has  seemed  to  triumph  it  has  given  only  a  wretched  copy  of  a 
stunted  and  decapitated  Catholicism.  In  other  places  the  discord  be- 
tween the  Catholic  and  Protestant  principles  has  become  manifest.  To 
it  is  due  the  ills  and  agitations  of  modern  Protestant  Churches.  By  the 
logic  of  ideas  and  the  force  of  things  they  are  taking  part  in  the  final 
struggle,  in  which  no  choice  remains  but  either  to  turn  back  again  to 
the  Roman  Catholicism  whence  they  once  came  out,  or  to  rise  joyfully 
and  vigorously  from  the  religion  of  the  letter  to  the  religion  of  the 
Spirit.  A  near  future  will  show  which  sentence  they  pronounce  upon 
themselves. 


BOOK  III 
THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


BOOK    III 
THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

CHAPTER  ONE 

FROM   THE   RELIGIONS   OP   AUTHORITY   TO   THE   RELIGION   OF    THE   8PIEIT 

Preliminary  Dialogue 

ADELPHI  is  a  friend  of  my  childhood  with  whom  I  have  the  habit  of 
discussing  whatever  I  write.  He  is  not  fond  of  novelties,  and  he  is  a 
pretty  good  logician ;  two  excellent  endowments  for  speedily  discovering 
the  difficulties  of  a  new  opinion  and  the  vice  of  specious  reasoning.  Con- 
cerned before  all  else  with  the  interests  of  the  religious  life,  he  holds 
by  tradition  and  defends  all  in  it  that  is  most  respectable  and  legitimate. 
For  me  to  come  to  a  clear  understanding  with  him  on  the  subject  is 
equivalent  to  settling  my  account  with  religion  itself. 

I  therefore  sent  to  him  the  first  two  parts  of  this  work  as  soon  as 
they  were  finished,  and  awaited  a  visit  from  him.  A  week  later  he  entered 
my  study,  and,  handing  me  my  manuscript,  entered  without  preamble 
upon  the  subject. 

I 

Authority  and  Religion 

A  del  phi. — Your  twofold  historical  exposition  has  greatly  disturbed 
my  mind.  It  would  be  possible  to  take  you  up  in  some  matters  of  detail, 
to  argue  such  and  such  of  your  statements,  but  not  to  shake  the  whole. 
For  my  part,  while  I  feel  incompetent  to  refute  you,  I  still  rebel  against 
your  conclusion.  It  seems  to  me  to  reach  farther  than  you  suspect. 
When  you  sap  the  basis  of  authority  you  destroy  the  very  foundations 
of  religion. 

366 


256  AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION 

7. — Are  you  not  confounding  authority  with  religion? 

Adelphi. — Not  at  all;  but  I  consider  them  inseparable.  However, 
here  are  the  three  objections,  or  rather  the  three  difficulties,  which  I 
desire  to  submit  to  you: 

1.  The  idea  of  religion  necessarily  implies  that  of  authority. 

2.  The  Christian  religion  is  essentially  a  history,  or,  if  you  prefer,  a 
manifestation  of  God  in  history.     But  all  history,  to  be  believed,  sup- 
poses the  attestation  of  witnesses. 

3.  The  Christian  religion,  as  you  yourself  state,  has  hitherto  been 
a  religion  of  authority;  it  has  always  created  its  own  authority  within 
itself.     Is  not  this  a  proof  or  a  presumption  that  it  cannot  do  without 
one? 

/. — My  dear  Adelphi,  in  all  this  I  recognise  your  methodical  mind. 
I  thank  you  for  thus  laying  down  the  programme  and  direction  of  our 
discussion,  it  will  be  by  so  much  the  shorter  and  clearer.  You  are  right 
in  thinking  that  I  have  not  written  this  long  history  of  the  Catholic  and 
Protestant  dogmas  of  authority  without  having  had  occasion  to  reflect 
upon  the  three  difficulties  which  you  set  before  me.  No  doubt  the  first 
is  the  gravest  in  your  eyes,  since  you  connect  with  it  the  very  destiny  of 
religion  upon  earth.  Shall  we  begin  with  it?  How,  then,  do  you 
understand  that  authority  and  religion  are  inseparable  things  and 
notions  ? 

Adelphi. — Their  connection  is  visible  enough.  Is  religion  anything 
else  than  the  recognition  and  acceptance  of  the  authority  of  God?  What 
is  it  to  adore,  if  not  to  prostrate  ourselves  humbly  and  unquestioningly 
before  his  Majesty?  What  is  it  to  pray,  if  not  to  proclaim  the  sov- 
ereignty of  his  will?  What  is  it  to  believe,  to  confide  one's  self  to  him,  if 
not  to  abandon  one's  self  entirely  to  his  providence  and  obey  his  decisions, 
even  when  we  find  them  incomprehensible?  The  people  then  are  right 
when  they  hold  that  a  religion  without  authority  is  not  a  religion. 

/. — The  people  and  you  are  a  thousand  times  right.  Far  from  dis- 
puting your  observations  on  this  point  I  should  be  inclined  to  go  even 


AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION  257 

farther.  It  is  the  essence  of  religion  to  recognise  and  accept  the 
authority  of  God;  to  recognise  it  and  rebel  against  it  would  be  the 
essence  of  impiety.  But  have  you  observed  that  when  you  express  your- 
self thus  you  limit  the  notion  of  authority  ?  It  is  no  longer  any  abstract 
authority  you  please;  it  is  the  authority  of  God.  And  in  this  connec- 
tion, please  recall  to  mind  that  in  those  parts  of  my  book  which  you 
have  read  there  is  not  one  word  of  hostility  to  the  absolute  authority  of 
God.  The  question  has  been  only  of  the  authority  of  the  Church,  or  the 
Pope,  and  of  the  authority  of  a  book,  the  Bible.  My  intention  has  even 
been  to  make  the  divine  authority  more  complete  in  the  souls  of  Chris- 
tians, by  setting  aside  and  putting  in  their  true  place  the  human  authori- 
ties which  men  have  attempted  to  put  in  the  place  of  his  authority,  and 
which  veil  or  misrepresent  him  under  the  pretext  of  making  him  more 
actual  and  concrete  to  us. 

Adelphi. — I  do  not  misunderstand  your  intention,  and  I  do  you  full 
justice  for  it.  I  simply  ask  if  the  enterprise  to  which  it  has  impelled 
you  will  not  lead  to  a  contrary  result?  In  any  case,  let  me  continue. 
We  agree  as  to  the  starting  point  of  our  discussion.  We  both  recognise 
and  accept  the  sovereign  and  indisputable  authority  of  God.  Let  us  now 
leave  the  abstract  and  place  ourselves  in  the  reality  of  experimental  and 
vital  religion.  The  authority  of  God  manifest*  itself  to  the  devout  con- 
science as  a  revelation,  a  word  of  God,  and  this  word  holds  in  subjection 
the  spirit  of  the  man  who  hears  and  understands  it ;  it  is  the  truth  which 
holds  sway  over  the  reason,  the  commandment  which  rules  the  will,  the 
inspiration  which  exalts  and  enraptures  the  whole  soul. 

7. — Truly,  I  could  not  express  it  better,  and  it  gives  me  infinite 
pleasure  to  hear  you.  Is  not  that  what  the  old  theologians  used  to  call 
the  inward  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  upon  which  they  rested  the 
specific  assurance  of  the  Christian  faith? 

Adelphi. — Unquestionably.  But  I  have  not  finished.  This  word  of 
God  has  objectified  itself  in  history.  It  has  gone  out  into  all  the  world 
by  the  mouth  of  those  whom  the  Bible  calls  "  men  of  God."  Under 


258  AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION 

various  unlike  forms  it  has  been  everywhere  present  and  audible,  but  in 
a  higher  manner,  more  clearly  and  purely,  in  Israel  and  in  the  Christian 
Church  than  elsewhere.  Do  you  not  admit  this  declaration  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  "  Having  spoken  to  the  fathers  at  diverse  times 
and  in  diverse  manners,  God  has  spoken  to  us  in  these  last  days  by  a 
Son  "?  Is  not  the  Bible  from  thenceforth  more  particularly  a  "  Word 
of  God,"  and  as  such  invested  with  a  divine  authority? 

/. — In  these  vague  and  general  terms  we  are  in  accord.  But  the 
problem  arises  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  define,  on  one  side  the  limits  of  the 
Bible,  or  Sacred  Canon,  and  on  the  other  the  kind  and  degree  of  the 
authority  of  each  one  of  the  books  comprised  in  this  collection.  You 
have  just  spoken  of  the  divine  authority  of  the  Bible;  you  do  not  under- 
stand this  absolutely,  as  if  God  spoke  to  you  personally  and  without 
intermediary.  The  men  who  served  him  as  organs  were  fallible,  they 
had  a  specific  mental  constitution;  they  shared  the  ignorances  or  the 
delusions  of  their  contemporaries.  There  is,  then,  in  their  writings,  a 
certain  number  of  general  ideas,  of  natural  and  historical  data  which, 
belonging  to  the  general  or  profane  order,  cannot  be  considered  as  divine 
revelations.  Whence  it  follows  inevitably  that,  to  discern  the  "  witness 
of  God  "  in  the  Bible  we  must  bring  to  it  examination  and  criticism. 
Answer  me  frankly.  Do  you  exercise  no  criticism  upon  any  book  or  any 
text  of  Scripture?  Do  you  know  a  theologian  of  our  day  who  abstains 
from  it,  or  even  a  simple  Christian  whose  piety,  nourishing  itself  upon 
the  Bible,  makes  no  choice  or  instinctive  selection? 

Adelphi. — I  must  confess  that  we  all  do  this. 

/. — Then  you  no  longer  admit  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible.  Why 
are  you  then  scandalised  when  I  perceive  and  describe  the  inevitable  and 
unconditional  death  of  this  old  dogma?  Where  we  have  to  do  with  an 
oracle  claiming  infallibility,  a  single  verified  error  is  enough  to  oblige 
us  in  conscience  to  examine  all  the  rest  of  its  utterances.  It  is  no  longer 
the  book  which  supports  the  truth  of  its  teaching;  it  is  the  elevation, 
the  power,  the  general  truth  of  the  teaching  recognised  by  the  conscience, 


AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION  269 

which  supports  the  moral  and  religious  authority  of  the  book.  But 
this  authority,  still  maintained  like  that  of  an  eminent  master  or  a  mas- 
terpiece of  art,  has  no  longer  anything  in  common  with  the  dogmatic 
notion  of  authority:  Auctoritas  valet  sme  ratione.  That  has  forever 
vanished.  The  outward  authority  of  the  letter  has  given  place  to  the 
inward  and  purely  moral  authority  of  the  Spirit. 

Adelphi. — Permit  me  to  defend  my  various  positions  in  their  order. 
Is  not  the  word  of  Christ  that  authority,  at  once  historic  and  divine, 
which  you  discover  nowhere? 

7. — Do  you  not  foresee  my  reply  to  your  question?  It  is  with  the 
word  of  Christ  precisely  as  with  the  word  of  God  himself.  Neither  of 
them  reaches  us  without  intermediary.  We  know  the  words  of  Christ 
through  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  who,  in  their  turn,  drew  them 
either  from  earlier  collections  already  variously  translated  into  Greek, 
or  from  an  oral  tradition  nearly  half  a  century  old.  Short  of  proclaim- 
ing a  priori  the  infallibility  of  this  human  literary  transmission,  how 
can  we  affirm  the  absolute  authenticity  of  the  letter  of  these  words,  or 
of  the  sense  in  which  this  letter  was  taken  by  the  early  Christians  ?  Are 
you  not  struck  with  the  fact  that  Jesus  felt  no  concern  to  fix  for  the 
future  the  form  of  his  discourses  ?  It  is  as  if  he  had  feared  in  advance 
that  someone  might  make  a  code  of  them  like  that  of  the  Mosaic  law. 
Besides,  were  the  case  otherwise,  all  Christians  believe  that  Jesus  was 
truly  man,  that  is  to  say,  a  concrete  man,  a  man  of  his  race,  times,  and 
surroundings.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that  in  cosmogony,  litera- 
ture, physics,  physiology,  he  inherited  and  frankly  made  use  of  the 
notions  usual  and  current  among  the  Pharisees,  his  contemporaries.  Will 
you  maintain  that  these  notions  are  by  that  fact  clothed  with  divine 
authority,  and  that  it  is  not  permitted  to  discuss  them,  or  hold  other 
views  on  these  subjects?  Not  only  were  all  the  words  of  Jesus  suggested 
by  circumstances,  and  appropriate  to  the  state  of  mind  of  his  hearers, 
but  they  were  also  wrapped  up,  like  luscious  fruits,  in  a  dry  and  withered 
husk  which  must  be  pierced  if  we  would  reach  the  nutritious,  invigorat- 


260  AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION 

ing  marrow.  Far  from  avoiding  criticism  and  exegesis,  that  is,  intelli- 
gent attention  and  profound  study,  his  words  call  for  it  more  imperi- 
ously than  all  the  rest.  God  has  willed  that  we  should  search  for  the 
thought  of  Christ,  as  for  his  own,  in  that  rendering  of  it  which  men 
have  left  for  us,  upon  our  personal  responsibility,  that  is  to  say,  in  full 
liberty  and  with  all  the  energy  of  our  faculties. 

Adelphi. — But  at  least,  have  you  no  pity  for  those  humble,  troubled 
minds  who  fear  that  the  obligation  to  pick  and  choose  in  Scripture  will 
rob  them  of  their  assurance  or  disturb  the  peace  of  their  faith?  Will 
you  not  leave  them  a  mmimum  of  ideas  or  facts  which  shall  be  authori- 
tative for  them? 

7. — The  lot  of  these  humble  beh'evers  concerns  me  to  such  a  degree 
that  I  had  no  rest  until  I  could  discover  for  them  in  place  of  an  outward 
infallible  authority,  which  nowhere  exists,  a  ground  of  assurance  ac- 
cessible to  all.  There  is  none  other  but  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
as  Calvin  put  in  so  strong  a  light,  and  which  they  have  mistakenly  aban- 
doned, to  take  refuge  in  certain,  as  they  believe,  immutable  results  of 
criticism.  As  to  that  minimum  of  belief  of  which  you  speak,  do  you  not 
feel  how  humiliating  and  at  the  same  time  perilous  such  a  poor  solution 
must  be?  What  Christian  could  wish  for  more  or  less  than  a  full  and 
true  Christian  belief?  The  conception  of  a  minimum  of  belief  is  the 
result  of  the  conflict  between  orthodoxy  and  rationalism,  and  the  irreme- 
diable defeat  of  the  former.  Unable  longer  to  maintain  complete  ortho- 
doxy, some  have  contented  themselves  with  a  diminished  and  mitigated 
orthodoxy,  which  is  of  all  things  in  the  world  the  least  satisfying  to 
reason  and  piety,  the  most  indefinite  and  inconsequent.  They  make  the 
best  of  a  bad  business,  they  yield  a  great  part  of  the  field  to  criticism, 
and  forbid  it  to  touch  the  rest.  But  who  determines  and  delimits  this 
minimum?  An  infallible  authority?  By  no  means.  The  theologians 
make  the  selection  upon  their  personal  authority.  They  offer  and  insist 
upon  the  result  of  their  own  subjective  criticism,  with  one  breath  avow- 
ing that  they  are  fallible  men,  and  with  another  assuming  to  formulate, 


AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION  261 

in  the  name  of  God  himself,  the  infallible  rule  of  Christian  belief.  Can 
we  imagine  anything  more  inconsistent  ?  And  is  it  not  time  to  overcome 
this  old  dualism  and  build  up  a  theology  at  once  more  believing  and  more 
scientific?  l 

A  del  phi. — I  have  no  reply  to  make ;  I  suffer  much,  both  in  my  reason 
and  my  faith,  from  the  situation  which  you  describe  and  which  I  find 
untenable.  You  do  not  take  into  account  the  drift  of  criticism.  When 
one  enters  upon  it  he  must  go  on  to  the  end.  My  criticism,  unless  I 
make  myself  a  pope,  has  no  right  to  determine  yours,  or  to  condemn  it 
as  sacrilege.  And  further,  I  see  that  those  who  believe  themselves  to  be 
and  claim  to  be  the  most  conscientious  continually  make  concessions, 
to-day  as  to  dogma,  to-morrow  as  to  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New.  What  they  call  the  deposit  of  the  traditional  faith  grows 
smaller  every  day,  melting  like  the  winter's  snow  in  the  spring  sunshine. 
But  how  shall  we  get  out  of  this  no  thoroughfare  in  which  Protestant 
Christians  are  shut  up?  You  open  for  them  only  the  door  of  an  un- 
limited subjectivity.  Why  should  you  be  surprised  that  some  of  them 
look  longingly  toward  Catholicism,  and  others  ask  for  a  more  solid 
foundation  for  their  faith? 

L — At  last  the  great  word  is  out,  the  scarecrow  with  which  men 
think  to  reply  to  everything  and  ward  off  all  dangers.  We  must  avoid 
subjectivism,  and  for  that  reason  we  will  not  have  a  subjective  criterion. 
But  can  there  be  any  other?  Consider  calmly  for  a  moment.  What 
criterion  do  those  employ  who  inveigh  against  the  new  theology?  Do 
they  think  with  another's  brain,  or  reason  with  another's  reason?  By 
virtue  of  what  principle  do  they  repel  the  claim  of  the  Catholic  Church 
to  infallibility?  Why  do  they  prefer  the  authorit"  /  the  Bible  to  that 
of  the  Koran?  Does  not  their  judgment  upon  tl  external  authorities 
leave  them  profoundly  peaceful?  And  yet  is  it  Anything  other  than  a 

1  It  is  needless  to  explain  that  we  are  speaking  here  of  religious  authority  for  the 
individual  faith.  The  religious  Society,  the  Church,  has  need  of  a  rule.  But  that  is 
an  entirely  different  matter,  which  will  find  its  place  elsewhere. 


262  AUTHORITY  AND  RELIGION 

subjective  judgment?  Is  it  not  inconsistent  to  permit  me  to  judge  by 
my  conscience  and  reason  of  the  value  of  an  authority  and  then  forbid 
me  to  examine  its  decisions  one  by  one? 

Let  us  go  farther.  What  is  faith — I  mean  personal  and  living  faith 
— if  not  the  individual  appropriation  of  the  truth?  How,  then,  shall 
faith  be  other  than  subjective?  And  can  Christian  assurance  be  found 
outside  of  the  jurisdiction  of  one's  consciousness?  You  fear  that  this 
foundation  is  not  sound?  But  of  what  nature  is  the  foundation  of 
morality?  Do  you  admit  that  there  is  anything  sounder  than  the  sense 
of  duty?  Can  an  exterior  authority  in  morals  ever  attain  to  that  pro- 
found and  sweet  security  enjoyed  by  a  conscience  that  clearly  sees  its 
duty  and  performs  it? 

If  morality  does  not  suffer  from  the  subjective  character  of  its  prin- 
ciple, why  should  religion,  especially  the  Christian  religion,  which  in 
the  last  analysis  is  identified  with  the  highest  morality,  and  forms  with 
it  an  ideal  unity? 

The  door  which  I  seek  to  open  to  souls  in  pain  is  the  door  of  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Spirit  and  of  liberty.  We  were  speaking  in  the  beginning 
of  the  authority  of  God.  Compare  with  it  that  of  any  human  institu- 
tion, whether  priestly  hierarchy  or  sacred  books.  The  first  is  within, 
in  the  conscience  and  the  reason,  precisely  because  it  is  spiritual  and 
moral;  it  meets  only  one  obstacle — sin.  It  carries  with  it  the  light  of 
evidence,  the  certitude  of  truth,  the  peace  of  a  finished  reconciliation. 
All  our  faculties  find  in  it  their  full  expansion,  because  it  fortifies  them 
inwardly  with  an  new  energy,  stimulates  them,  and  manifests  itself  only 
in  their  exercise  and  legitimate  satisfaction.  On  the  contrary,  the 
authority  of  a  priest  or  a  book,  as  compared  with  that  of  God,  remains 
of  necessity  external,  like  a  human  law,  and  inevitably  becomes  a  yoke 
which  either  weighs  down  the  human  being  or  urges  him  to  revolt.  What 
share  in  what  we  call  the  incredulity  of  our  fellow  citizens  shall  we  not 
attribute  to  the  religious  authority  which  they  accept  in  their  childhood, 
and  execrate  or  contemn  on  arriving  at  years  of  reason?  Do  you  under- 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  263 

stand  now  that  when  I  attack  these  old  systems  I  do  it  in  the  spirit  of 
the  reformers,  who  shook  off  all  human  authority  that  they  might  the 
more  firmly  and  absolutely  establish  the  authority  of  God  in  the  con- 
sciences of  men? 

To  this  inward  religion  of  the  Spirit  God  seeks  to  lead  his  Church. 
He  stirs  her  up,  harasses  her,  instructs  her  by  the  scientific  development 
of  our  time;  he  shows  her  the  ancient  shelters  in  which  for  a  time  she 
took  refuge  falling  into  ruins,  and  thus  constrains  her  to  enter  upon 
the  path  that  leads  to  wider  horizons.  What  else  are  the  plaints  and 
threats  of  reaction  lifted  up  by  timid  believers  but  reproaches  addressed 
to  God  himself? 

Can  we  prescribe  to  God  by  what  methods  he  ought  to  speak  to  us 
or  on  what  conditions  we  will  recognise  and  heed  his  word?  All  this  is 
unreasonable.  The  divine  work  is  mysterious,  but  it  is  good  and  perfect. 
It  is  we  who  are  shortsighted,  our  requirements  that  are  puerile,  our 
rebellions  that  are  meaningless.  Why  should  we  continue  to  insist  upon 
an  external  infallible  authority  ?  There  is  none.  In  our  religious  indo- 
lence we  would  have  abdicated  and  taken  refuge  in  it ;  and  God  will  not 
have  his  children  abdicate;  he  wants  no  inert  spirits  in  his  kingdom. 
That  is  why  he  tells  us  by  the  lips  of  Jesus :  M  He  that  seeketh  findeth," 
having  made  the  search  for  spiritual  benefits  the  very  condition  of  their 
possession. 

I  had  become  animated  as  I  drew  this  conclusion  from  our  conversa- 
tion. Adelphi  was  thoughtfully  silent.  For  a  moment  the  discussion 
was  suspended,  but  it  was  soon  resumed. 

n 

Historic  Testimony  and  Criticism 

ADELPHI. — Hitherto  we  have  confined  ourselves  to  considerations  too 
exclusively  formal.  If  dogmatic  authority  implies  infallibility,  if  it 


264  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

can  escape  critical  examination  only  at  this  price,  I  admit  that  you  have 
gained  your  point.  Infallibility  exists  only  in  God,  and  we  do  not  be- 
lieve  that  he  has  delegated  it  to  anyone.  It  exists  nowhere  in  this  world. 
But  because  such  infallibility  has  no  existence,  does  it  follow  that  author- 
ity has-  not  an  important  part  in  religion  and  that  religious  beliefs  in 
particular  do  not  for  the  most  part  rest  upon  it? 

/. — Take  care,  you  have  just  made  an  important  concession.  You* are 
giving  up  your  arms.  If  I  understand  you,  you  are  hoping  to  maintain 
the  method  of  authority,  and  authority  itself,  by  sacrificing  infallibility. 
But  what  is  an  authority  that  is  not  infallible?  I  will  not  say  that  it  is 
nothing,  but  I  will  say  that  it  is  limited  and  relative.  In  such  a  case, 
I  have  nothing  to  say  against  it.  Moses,  Isaiah,  Paul,  John,  Peter,  are 
to  me  and  will  continue  to  be,  in  the  religious  order,  men  of  God  clothed 
with  a  very  great  moral  authority;  I  put  myself  to  school  to  them,  I 
profit  by  their  lessons,  they  are  incomparable  models  and  precious 
teachers ;  but,  after  all,  I  am  still  free  to  choose  between  their  ideas,  to 
criticise  their  reasonings,  to  reject  such  of  their  teachings  as  are  to  me 
unassimilable,  and  to  retain  those  which  my  present  light  shows  me  to 
be  just  and  true.  Please  observe  that  in  the  philosophic  realm  Plato, 
Aristotle,  Descartes,  Kant,  are  authorities  of  this  order.  But  all  this 
has  nothing  in  common  with  the  dogmatic  authority  which  we  are  dis- 
cussing. Dogmatic  authority  reigned  when  the  famous  Magister  dixit 
was  enough  by  itself  alone  to  establish  and  defend  the  truth.  An 
authority  which  one  has  the  right  to  discuss,  to  defend,  or  blame,  is  not 
an  authority. 

Adelphi. — I  understand  it  otherwise.  We  are  not  talking  about  a 
fallible  authority,  but  about  infallibility  restricted  to  certain  objects,  in 
a  certain  domain,  absolute  as  to  the  degree  of  certitude,  limited  as  to 
the  extent  of  its  jurisdiction.  Why,  for  example,  should  not  men  of 
God,  including  the  Christ,  have  absolute  competence  to  reveal  to  us  the 
thoughts  and  will  of  God  concerning  us?  This  competence  would  be 
limited  to  religious  things  and  not  extended  over  profane  things.  This 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  265 

is  what  we  wish  to  say  when  we  profess  the  sovereignty  of  the  Scriptures 
in  matters  of  religion. 

7. — I  fear  this  new  distinction  will  not  help  you  much.  Have  you 
reflected  how  fleeting  and  intangible  is  the  assumed  line  of  demarcation 
that  you  thus  trace  between  religious  and  profane  things ;  between  those, 
for  example,  in  which  I  ought  to  submit  without  discussion  and  those 
where  my  criticism  may  freely  exercise  itself?  Who  will  trace  this  line 
with  infallible  authority?  And  if  you  fall  back  upon  the  individual 
sense,  do  you  not  see  that  everyone  will  put  outside  of  the  strictly  reli- 
gious domain  all  that  his  Christian  conscience  cannot  tolerate  ?  Had  the 
orders  of  extermination  given  by  God  himself  to  Joshua  and  the  con- 
querors of  Palestine  a  religious  character,  or  not?  Are  not  the  pre- 
scriptions of  the  Mosaic  law  all  religious,  and  yet  are  we  not  obliged  to 
make  a  choice  among  them? 

I  find  not  the  slightest  reason  to  believe  that  Jesus  did  not  share  the 
opinions  of  his  contemporaries  as  to  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch and  as  to  the  creation  of  the  world  and  the  origin  of  the  human 
race,  as  narrated  in  Genesis.  Do  these  opinions  affect  religion,  or  do 
they  not?  What  shall  we  say  of  the  person  of  Satan  and  of  demoniac 
possession?  Your  distinction  between  religious  and  profane  science  does 
not  help  here ;  it  is  ineffective  because  it  is  false.  The  two  domains  are 
inseparable;  not  only  are  all  truths  interdependent,  but  the  order  of 
notions  which  you  call  profane,  I  don't  know  why,  always  and  every- 
where serves  as  the  expression  or  the  integument  of  what  you  call  reli- 
gious beliefs. 

Adelphi. — In  every  order  of  knowledge  authority  has  its  function — 
that  of  testimony  itself.  In  mathematics,  where  testimony  has  no  place, 
authority  has  none.  In  history,  where  almost  everything  rests  upon 
testimony,  the  part  of  authority  is  considerable.  Will  you  not  grant 
me  that  the  authority  of  a  witness  is  proportioned  to  his  right  to  be 
believed?  Does  not  the  holiness  of  Christ  give  absolute  authority  to  his 
testimony  in  the  things  of  God? 


266  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

7. — You  have  raised  the  question  of  historic  testimony  and  its 
authority.  We  will  examine  that  presently.  But  first  let  me  set  aside 
this  last  method  of  establishing  doctrinal  authority,  by  basing  it  upon 
the  holiness  of  Christ.  It  is  not  worth  more  than  the  others,  and  I  think 
I  have  already  refuted  it.  I  have  shown  that  the  utterances  of  Jesus 
being  known  to  us  only  by  apostolic  tradition,  nothing  can  guarantee  to 
us  that  tradition  has  preserved  the  entire  thought  of  the  Saviour,  or 
always  with  the  meaning  which  it  had  upon  his  lips  for  those  who  heard 
him,  and  which  was  determined  by  the  occasion.  Besides,  though  holiness 
incontestably  purifies  a  man's  inward  eye  and  renders  the  operations  of 
his  mind  more  accurate,  it  is  no  less  certain,  as  nearly  all  conservative 
theologians  admit,  that  it  did  not  raise  Christ  above  the  sphere  of  human 
fallibility;  it  did  not  prevent  his  inheriting  the  religious  conceptions 
and  traditions  of  his  people,  so  far  as  these  did  not  run  counter  to  his 
personal  religious  inspiration.  Many  an  error  may  be  due  to  sin. 
But  error,  so  far  as  it  is  an  intellectual  act  or  a  mental  condition,  is  not 
a  sin.  Therefore,  neither  in  fact  nor  in  theory  is  it  right  or  possible 
to  postulate  the  absolute  infallibility  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in  the  his- 
toric form  in  which  we  possess  them.  Are  we  at  last  agreed  on  this 
point?  And  are  we  finally  rid  of  those  incongruous  and  contradictory 
ideas,  relative  authority  and  limited  infallibility? 

Adelphl. — Yes,  from  the  formal  view-point  of  religious  knowledge 
and  the  question  of  method;  no,  from  the  material  view-point  of  the 
facts  which  constitute  the  revelation  of  God  and  the  historic  testimony 
which  attests  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  latter  is  still  an  authority,  so 
far  as  it  partakes  of  the  divinity  of  its  contents.  The  Bible,  the  history 
of  revelation,  is  invested  for  us  with  the  authority  of  revelation,  unless 
the  latter  has  no  reality.  Let  me  explain  myself. 

The  Christian  religion  is  not  a  philosophy,  nor  even  a  purely  subjec- 
tive religious  inspiration.  It  is  a  well-defined  historic  fact,  and  conse- 
quently objective  and  resistant,  on  which  our  faith  may  and  ought  to 
rest.  Otherwise  it  floats  in  the  air,  and  becomes  a  fanciful  dream.  You 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  287 

dread  the  fanaticism  of  the  illummati;  there  is  no  other  help  for  it  except 
history  and  tradition.  Recall  to  mind  the  admirable  theory  of  Rothe. 
He  distinguishes  in  revelation  two  classes:  the  words  of»God  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  men  of  God,  or  inspiration,  and  acts  of  God  in  the  history 
of  humanity,  or  history  of  God.  Without  the  first  element  acts  are 
mute  and  dead;  without  the  second  inspiration  is  purely  subjective  and 
without  purpose.  The  two  interpenetrate  and  form  a  living  organism, 
like  the  soul  and  the  body.  The  body  may  be  infirm,  sickly,  made  of 
earthly  clay,  but  it  is  still  a  living  body  and  not  a  corpse.  So  with 
the  Bible ;  it  is  alive  by  the  spirit  which  fills  it,  and,  like  all  living  bodies, 
it  exercises  an  undeniable  action. 

7. — Your  words  are  golden,  and  I  shall  certainly  not  contradict 
opinions  which  are  my  own.  Yes,  religious  inspiration  has  for  correla- 
tive a  religious  purpose  in  nature  and  in  history.  The  Christian  religion 
is  a  historic  fact,  and  the  divine  revelation  given  to  man  is  the  history  of 
the  acts  of  God,  by  which  God  carries  on  his  work  of  educating  and  re- 
deeming humanity.  Every  religious  belief  has  as  its  inevitable  conse- 
quence an  interpretation  of  the  religious  history  of  humanity.  The 
attentive  study  and  meditation  of  this  history  are  absolutely  necessary 
to  foster,  strengthen,  and  enlighten  the  religious  sense,  if  it  is  not  to 
wander  astray  in  the  bypaths  of  illuminism.  For  what  other  reason 
have  I  almost  continually  confined  myself  to  the  critical  study  of  this 
history,  and  formed  all  my  religious  philosophy  from  the  point  of  view 
of  history  and  psycholog}'?  I  like,  too,  to  hear  you  speak  of  the  Bible 
as  a  living  organism,  having  a  soul  and  a  body,  and  to  see  you  propor- 
tioning its  authority  to  its  effects.  But  by  so  doing  you  yourself  recog- 
nise differences  in  it.  In  the  presence  of  texts  which  produce  no  effect, 
or  which  might  even  prove  dangerous  if 'the  letter  were  blindly  followed, 
you  say  that  the  authority  of  the  Bible  is  of  no  force.  Where  its  influ- 
ence is  of  slight  importance  you  esteem  its  authority  small;  where  it  is 
convincing,  luminous,  regenerating,  and  sanctifying,  you  attribute  to 
it  even  divine  authority.  But  where  do  you  find  the  criterion  by  which 


268  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

you  establish  these  degrees  and  justify  these  differences?  Is  it  not  in 
your  Christian  consciousness,  illuminated  by  the  light  of  the  Spirit? 
There  is  a  diamond  in  this  book,  a  life-draught  in  this  vase  of  clay.  But 
you  do  not  value  the  case  equally  with  the  jewel,  nor  the  clay  as  the 
liquor.  You  admit  that  the  most  imperfect,  the  most  rudimentary 
human  testimony  may  bring  us  a  message  from  God,  and  teach  us  to 
recognise  it  as  such  by  the  response  which  it  awakes  in  our  hearts. 

Adelphi. — I  grant  you  all  that;  but  there  are  acts  which  reveal  God 
and  continue  to  reveal  him,  independently  of  the  effect  which  they  pro- 
duce upon  us. 

7. — Patience !  I  am  coming  to  that.  But  let  us  take  up  the  ques- 
tions in  order  and  close  each  one  upon  which  we  agree  before  opening 
another.  ,. 

You  speak  of  acts  of  God  which  constitute  his  objective  revelation. 
I  admit  them  quite  as  much  as  you  or  Rothe  himself.  No  man  can  have 
felt  the  presence  and  action  of  God  in  his  heart  without  finding  traces 
of  his  presence  active  in  all  the  universe.  But  let  us  state  the  question 
in  all  its  amplitude,  that  we  may  see  it  as  it  is.  God  works  and  acts  in 
nature.  Jesus  has  taught  us  to  see  behind  all  phenomena  and  their  laws 
the  constant  activity  of  a  Father.  The  thought  of  God  in  nature  is 
mysterious,  often  disconcerting.  Yet  our  faith  clings  to  it.  There  is 
in  it  a  revelation  of  God.  "  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,"  said 
the  psalmist  of  Israel.  We  say  it  too,  but  observe  that  we  say  it  other- 
wise— I  mean  with  another  view  of  the  physical  universe.  Modern 
astronomy  has  subjected  to  criticism  the  Psalmist's  notions  about  the 
heavens  and  their  hosts,  and  has  dissipated  them  as  so  many  childish 
imaginations.  But  do  the  heavens  which  it  has  discovered  to  us,  the 
constitutions  and  courses  of  the  worlds  which  it  describes  for  us,  give 
the  religious  man  a  smaller  idea  of  the  Creator's  power? 

From  nature  let  us  pass  to  the  history  of  humanity,  and  in  particular 
to  that  of  religions.  Here  again,  what  a  revolution  has  historical  criti- 
cism not  made !  Are  we  not  constrained  to  recognise  a  positive  activity, 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  269 

a  history  of  God,  in  what  we  used  to  call  paganism?  Has  he  ceased  to 
give  everywhere  witnesses  of  his  presence  and  inspirations  of  the  truth? 
Do  we  not  discover  them  in  the  religions  of  China,  of  India,  of  Babylon, 
in  the  moral  achievement  of  Greece  and  Rome?  In  short,  the  criticism 
of  the  documents  reconstructs  the  history  of  humanity,  till  now  almost 
unknown,  and  in  this  history  the  pious  man  recognises  and  hails  the 
pedagogic  work  of  his  God. 

This  divine  revelation  becomes  more  exalted,  more  definite,  stronger, 
and  clearer  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  people,  in  the  life  of  Christ,  of 
his  apostles,  and  of  all  Christendom.  You  say  that  here  we  have  a  special 
revelation,  and  I  do  not  doubt  it — miraculous,  I  grant  this  also,  since 
every  act  of  God  is  miraculous  to  faith.  But  I  add  that  the  events  of 
this  history,  like  those  of  all  the  others,  have  been  historically  and  psycho- 
logically conditioned,  and  for  that  very  reason  they  are  intelligible,  they 
form  a  chain  and  are  material  for  science.  But  this  history  of  Israel 
and  of  the  origins  of  Christianity  ought  to  be  studied  and  criticised  like 
all  the  others,  if  we  would  know  them  historically.  Otherwise  we  run 
the  risk  of  taking  the  shadow,  the  legend,  for  the  reality.  We  must 
then  weigh  testimonies,  fix  the  age  and  value  of  the  documents,  work  out 
an  exegesis  of  them  at  once  historical  and  grammatical.  And  we  may 
arrive  at  a  conception  of  this  history  entirely  different  from  that  held 
by  the  Church  Fathers,  without  finding  the  work  of  God  to  be  less  strik- 
ing and  worthy  of  admiration. 

In  vain  do  we  stiffen  ourselves  against  this  method  and  determine 
a  priori  to  maintain  the  absolute  historicity  of  the  traditions  found  in 
Genesis;  our  obstinacy  will  not  change  the  fact  that  the  anonymous 
account  which  we  possess  is  later  by  several  thousands  of  years  than 
the  events  it  narrates.  Likewise  the  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch  con- 
strains us  to  modify  seriously  our  ideas  of  the  legislation  of  Sinai  and 
the  desert.  In  other  words,  we  do  not  cease  to  see  the  revealing  activity 
of  God  in  the  history  of  Israel,  but  we  understand  it  differently. 

So  with  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  his  apostles.     Here  the  docu- 


270  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

ments  are  more  numerous  and  positive.  The  reality  of  the  events  is 
easier  to  grasp,  and  free  from  other  material.  But  we  cannot  deny 
that  legend  and  theological  speculation  are  mingled  with  them  in  the 
traditional  history  which  has  come  down  to  us.  Here  again  historic 
criticism  has  its  work  to  do  and  ought  to  do  it  in  full  liberty. 

Adelphi. — It  is  precisely  the  dissolving  action  of  this  criticism  that 
alarms  me.  How  can  you  reconcile  the  unlimited  exercise  of  your  criti- 
cism with  the  existence  of  a  positive  and  well-defined  Christianity? 

7. — Here  indeed  we  come  to  the  last  question,  and  the  decisive  one. 
Let  us  study  it  at  leisure.  By  it  two  things,  criticism  and  the  Christian 
religion,  are  confronted  with  one  another.  Let  us  see  how  they  behave 
toward  one  another. 

With  regard  to  historic  criticism  I  maintain  that  its  rights  are 
illimitable,  but  that  its  power  is  not.  You  grant  me  these  two  proposi- 
tions? 

Adelphi. — I  cannot  dispute  the  first,  for  I  do  not  see  where  can  be 
the  authority  which  could  limit  the  rights  of  criticism.  To  limit  the 
right  of  inquiry  amounts  to  the  same  as  denying  it.  I  see  that  very 
clearly.  Your  second  assertion  is  less  clear  to  me.  If  the  rights  of 
criticism  are  unlimited,  why  should  not  its  power  be  so?  It  seems  to 
me  that  with  the  ability  to  question  everything  it  can  destroy  every- 
thing. 

7. — The  conclusion  is  not  imperative.  What  is  historic  criticism 
concerned  with?  With  the  very  reality  of  the  events  of  the  past?  No, 
simply  with  the  subjective  representation  of  them  that  we  make  for  our- 
selves. It  cannot  modify  the  facts  themselves,  which  remain  what  they 
always  were ;  what  it  modifies  is  our  idea  or  knowledge  of  them.  Do  not 
fear,  then,  that  criticism  will  banish  history;  it  has  no  other  purpose 
or  power  than  to  make  it  known  to  us  more  certainly  and  accurately. 
The  notion  of  a  purely  negative  criticism  is  nonsense,  criticism  being  con- 
sidered as  a  whole  work,  and  not  in  some  special  detail.  In  reality  it 
never  leaves  the  mind  vacant,  nor  the  past  empty ;  at  most  it  substitutes 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  271 

for  one  idea  of  things  past  another  which  it  believes  to  be  more  correct. 
No  doubt  it  is  often  mistaken;  but  precisely  by  virtue  of  the  object  it 
pursues,  it  profits  by  its  errors  and  turns  its  disproved  hypotheses  to 
the  advantage  of  the  truth.  The  dumb  resistance  which  historic  reality 
offers  to  its  fancies  and  provisional  conclusions  warns  it  that  it  has  not 
seen  the  whole  and  must  begin  its  work  over  again.  We  should  not  draw 
from  this  a  reason  for  shutting  it  up  to  scepticism.  Incontestable 
results  have  been  obtained  in  the  amendment  of  the  texts,  the  relative 
chronology  of  documents,  and  in  the  historical  and  grammatical  explana- 
tion of  passages  formerly  misunderstood. 

In  showing  a  legend  to  be  such,  destroying  a  prejudice,  demonstrat- 
ing the  uncertainty  of  something  which  in  fact  is  uncertain,  that  is  to 
say,  in  making  evident  to  us  where  our  knowledge  ends  and  our  ignorance 
begins,  it  is  continually  instructing  us,  and  efficaciously  serves  the  cause 
of  positive  history.  Is  it  not  true  that,  thanks  to  criticism,  we  know 
the  history  of  Greece  and  Rome,  of  Egypt  and  India,  of  Islam  and 
Buddhism,  of  ancient  Chaldea  and  of  our  Middle  Ages  better  than  they 
were  known  in  the  seventeenth  or  eighteenth  centuries  ?  Likewise  I  don't 
hesitate  to  say  that  we  have  a  more  positive  knowledge  of  the  history 
of  the  Israelitish  people,  of  the  life  of  Jesus  and  of  the  apostolate  than 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church  and  the  Reformers  had.  To  sum  up,  God 
has  confided  to  men  and  to  human  witnesses  the  preaching  and  preserva- 
tion of  the  gospel  of  salvation.  If  its  testimony  is  subject  to  changes; 
to  inconsistencies,  obscurities  which  sometimes  compromise  it,  he  has 
given  us  the  faculty  of  discernment,  and  at  the  proper  time  he  has  raised 
up  the  science  of  historic  criticism  which  progressively  gives  greater 
light,  and  counterbalances  the  inevitable  weaknesses  of  the  human  mind 
by  establishing  its  equilibrium.  You  should  therefore  bless  criticism, 
not  ban  it. 

Adelphi. — I  shall  bless  it  when  you  have  shown  me  how  it  can  be 
saving  Christianity  when  it  seems  to  be  destroying  it. 

7. — There  is  certainly  a  traditional  notion  of  Christianity  which  is 


272  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

incompatible  with  historic  criticism;  but  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether 
this  is  a  correct  notion  and  whether  it  does  not  need  reforming.  You 
have  spoken  of  a  "  positive  and  determined  Christianity  "  which  it  is 
important  to  maintain.  Will  you  kindly  tell  me  in  what  it  consists,  and 
what  are  its  articles  which  we  must  believe  under  penalty  of  falling  short 
of  salvation? 

Adelphi. — The  thing  is  easier  to  understand  than  to  state. 

7. — That  is  no  doubt  the  reason  why  everyone  understands  it  as  he 
likes  and  no  one  defines  it.  But  if  the  Christian  religion  is  indefinable  ex- 
cept by  the  arbitrary  decision  of  an  ecclesiastical  authority,  may  it  not  be 
that  the  general  notion  of  it  is  inconsistent,  and,  to  some  degree,  false? 
Catholicism  presents  me  with  a  long  list  of  articles  to  believe  under  peril 
of  damnation.  The  list  is  not  so  long  in  the  Anglican  confession,  still 
less  in  that  of  La  Rochelle,  and  finally  it  is  infinitely  shortened  in  that  of 
the  Reformed  Synod  of  1872.  Where  shall  I  find  an  authentic  and  faith- 
ful statement  of  the  articles  which  would  constitute  that  positive  Chris- 
tianity of  which  I  hear  so  much? 

Adelphi. — In  any  case  Churches  and  theologians  agree  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  is  inseparable  from  the  historic  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  Have 
you  not  said  so  yourself? 

7. — And  I  say  it  again.  But  there  is  more  than  one  way  of  con- 
necting the  Christian  religion  with  the  person  and  life  of  Christ.  The 
Apostle  Paul  in  his  Epistles  omits  or  ignores  the  entire  life  of  the  Master, 
his  miraculous  birth,  his  miracles,  his  teaching,  and  connects  his  gospel 
with  a  single  fact,  the  death  of  Christ  upon  the  cross.  On  the  other 
hand,  Athanasius  and  the  Greek  Church  Fathers,  inspired  by  St.  John, 
concentrate  all  their  teaching  upon  the  fact  of  the  birth,  or  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Word  of  God,  who  redeems,  renews,  and  saves  human 
nature,  by  identifying  himself  with  it  and  so  lifting  it  to  the  divine. 
Still  farther,  Socinians  and  rationalists  find  with  St.  James  the  saving 
word  and  the  essence  of  the  gospel  only  in  the  moral  teachings  of  Jesus. 
Evidently  none  of  these  theologians  is  absolutely  wrong,  but  neither  is 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  273 

any  one  of  them  exclusively  right.  The  doctrine  of  the  cross,  the  doctrine 
of  the  Incarnate  Word,  the  moral  teachings  of  the  parables,  and  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  may  all  be  traced  back  to  a  deeper  principle  of 
which  these  doctrines  are  so  many  different  expressions.  The  death  of 
Jesus  was  the  blow  which  broke  the  alabaster  box  and  set  free  the  divine 
perfume  of  his  heart,  which  was  renunciation,  sacrifice,  love.  The  doc- 
trine of  the  Word  expresses  that  absolute  union  with  God,  that  immanence 
of  the  Father  in  him,  that  sense  of  divine  Sonship,  which  was  the  basis 
of  his  religious  consciousness.  And  what  are  his  discourses,  if  not  the 
preaching  of  that  gospel  of  love  and  forgiveness  which  was  the  outcome 
of  his  consciousness,  and  which  made  the  salvation  of  sinners  depend  only 
upon  repentance,  trust,  and  the  yielding  up  of  the  heart?  In  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  Jesus  we  find  the  initial  divine  fact,  the  creative 
fact,  the  seed  from  which  the  tree  .has  grown. 

Adelphl. — Does  not  the  very  fact  of  the  existence  of  such  a  con- 
sciousness constitute  a  minimum,  a  historic  residue  which  must  be  with- 
drawn from  criticism?  Who  is  to  assure  you  that  criticism  will  respect 
that  any  more  than  all  the  rest?  In  the  last  resort,  you  see,  you  are 
under  the  same  banner  with  us. 

/. — You  would  be  right  if  I  had  said  that  the  Christian  religion  con- 
sists in  admitting  the  historic  thesis  that  such  a  consciousness  appeared 
in  the  world  at  a  given  date.  Indeed  you  may  admit  this  thesis  and  still 
not  be  a  Christian.  He  who  has  made  a  critical  demonstration  of  the 
fact  has  still  to  believe,  to  receive  the  gospel  of  salvation  by  faith  alone, 
with  repentance  and  the  consecration  of  the  heart.  For  the  Christian 
faith  is  not  a  belief.  Though  it  is  never  without  an  intellectual  element, 
it  is  not  an  intellectual  act.  It  is  a  moral  act,  having,  like  all  moral 
acts,  its  sanction  and  sufficient  warrant  within  itself.  This  is  what  be- 
lievers call  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  gives  them  their  firm 
confidence.  The  assurance  of  faith  is  never  founded  on  human  authority 
or  logical  or  historical  demonstration ;  it  must  be,  and  it  actually  is,  as 
Calvin  says,  drawn  from  a  higher  source;  it  comes  from  God  himself. 


274  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

Now  this  experimental  faith  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  awakened 
in  us  by  the  most  imperfect  preaching,  the  most  feeble  testimony, 
humanly  speaking,  of  the  most  ignorant  of  Christians,  produces  a  reli- 
gious consciousness  identical  with  that  of  Jesus ;  it  gives  us  a  conscious- 
ness of  inward  reconciliation  with  God  and  of  divine  sonship.  Thus  the 
religious  and  moral  consciousness  of  Jesus  is  repeated,  continued,  dif- 
fused, and  remains  actually  present  and  living  in  each  Christian  genera- 
tion, independently  of  criticism,  which  may  peacefully  continue  its 
labours  without  the  slightest  risk  of  doing  it  harm.  Faith  thus  under- 
stood has  nothing  to  fear  from  historic  criticism;  it  belongs  to  another 
order.1 

At  this  capital  point  we  find  the  parting  of  the  ways  between  two 
conceptions  of  the  Christian  religion,  two  theologies.  On  one  side  is 
traditional  theology,  a  more  or  less  mitigated  orthodoxy,  representing 
a  dualistic  conception  of  Christianity ;  the  gospel  of  salvation  consisting 
in  a  series  of  historic  or  dogmatic  beliefs,  plus  the  living  faith  of  the 
heart.  Men  are  not  saved  by  faith  alone,  but  by  faith  and  right  beliefs, 
just  as  in  Catholicism  they  are  saved  by  faith  and  good  works.  Over 
against  this  dualistic,  Catholic  conception  there  is  the  monistic  concep- 
tion, organic,  interior,  of  salvation  by  faith  produced  by  the  simple 
preaching  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  and  sealed  in  the  heart  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  is  the  conception  of  Luther,  of  Calvin,  of  St.  Paul,  and,  above 
all,  it  is  the  conception  of  the  Master.  This  is  the  essential  basis  of  the 
Christian  religion,  which,  to  be  accepted,  has  need  of  no  external  author- 
ity as  its  warrant,  whether  that  of  a  priest,  or  of  a  book,  or  of  science. 
Science,  book,  ecclesiastical  ministry,  sacraments — to  faith  they  are  all 
means  of  grace,  of  which  it  makes  use  with  thanks  to  God;  but  these 
means  belong  to  faith,  not  faith  to  them.  Do  you  not  perceive 
how,  the  organic  unity  of  the  Christian  religion  being  found,  the  entire 
system  reconstructs  itself  in  order,  with  the  reciprocal  subordination 

1  £.  M6n6goz,  "  Reflexions  sur  1'Evangile  da  Salut,"  in  "  Publications  diverses  sur 
le  Fideisme,"  Paris,  1900. 


HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM  276 

of  all  its  parts?  At  the  same  time,  being  inwardly  enfranchised  and 
set  at  peace,  the  Christian  soul  finds  harmony  in  all  its  faculties,  which 
till  now  were  discordant.  The  intelligence  no  longer  wars  against  the 
conscience,  the  reason  against  the  will  to  believe,  scientific  activity  against 
practical  activity.  All  work  together,  in  full  liberty,  with  a  sense  of 
entire  consecration  to  the  work  which  God,  by  the  activity  of  the  Spirit, 
is  carrying  on  in  us  and  in  the  universe. 

Adelphi. — You  make  your  ideas  most  attractive.  I  see  no  theoreti- 
cal objection  to  them.  But  I  still  find  one,  and  a  very  grave  one,  in 
the  practical  order.  If  I  understand  you  aright,  you  make  the  truth 
of  the  Christian  religion  to  rest  upon  the  experience  of  faith,  that  is  to 
say,  upon  the  religious  life  of  the  Christian.  But  how  uncertain,  incon- 
stant, weak  is  this  life,  even  among  the  most  fervent!  Are  you  not 
building  upon  the  quicksand?  If  the  Christian  life  were  to  be  extin- 
guished the  Christian  religion  would  vanish  with  it.  You  were  but  now 
expressing  sympathy  with  the  weak,  the  humble,  the  ignorant;  are  not 
you  now  condemning  them  to  feed  upon  their  own  poverty,  to  lean  upon 
their  own  weakness ;  and  even  we,  in  our  hours  of  languor  and  spiritual 
death,  have  we  not  need  of  support  and  comfort? 

7. — I  am  sorry  to  say  that  these  last  words  prove  to  me  that  you  have 
not  grasped  my  thought.  Where,  pray,  did  you  discern  that  I  deprive 
Christians,  whether  strong  or  feeble,  of  the  support,  the  succour,  the 
means  of  grace,  that  the  goodness  of  God  has  provided  for  them?  The 
Church,  preaching,  the  Bible,  the  communion  of  saints,  the  sacraments, 
the  example  and  the  love  of  the  brethren,  are  not  all  these  theirs,  and  is 
it  not  their  right,  or  rather  their  duty,  to  make  continual  use  of  them? 
We  are  never  without  these  stimulating  influences,  these  means  of  edu- 
cation and  uplift.  But  what  is  the  object  of  the  means  of  grace?  It 
is  to  create,  foster,  strengthen  in  us  the  life  of  faith,  not  to  take  its 
place ;  to  make  us  live,  not  to  exempt  us  from  living. 

Have  you  not  perceived  the  dangers  of  the  system  of  authority? 
When  religion  is  identified  with  faith  in  established  authority,  whether 


276  HISTORIC  TESTIMONY  AND  CRITICISM 

Pope,  council,  Bible,  or  synod,  if  the  authority  becomes  open  to  suspi- 
cion or  is  convinced  of  error  on  a  single  point,  everything  goes  to  pieces, 
and  is  overwhelmed  in  doubt.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sense  of 
security  is  complete,  the  peril  is  not  less  to  be  dreaded.  We  have  sub- 
mitted to  authority,  and  all  is  well.  We  are  in  the  true  Church,  on 
the  safe  side ;  we  may  go  to  sleep. 

Quite  otherwise  is  it,  I  admit,  with  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  No 
doubt  it  also  has  its  dangers ;  but  it  has  its  resources.  Let  me  read  you 
these  admirable  words  of  Mr.  Leopold  Monod,  who  felt  your  difficulties 
and  met  them  with  these  words : *  "  After  all,  it  is  just  (I  would  add  that 
it  is  logical)  that  if  my  inner  life  grows  sluggish,  if  comforts  and  self- 
esteem  have  usurped  control  over  me,  if  indifference  has  benumbed  and 
paralysed  my  conscience,  it  is  just  and  right  that  I  should  lose  my  assur- 
ance, that  I  should  feel  myself  tottering  and  not  know  which  support 
to  grasp.  As  soon  as  the  support  of  the  Spirit  fails  us,  we  seek  for 
other  supports.  But  there  are  no  others ;  there  ought  to  be  none.  We 
desire,  as  has  been  accurately  said,  to  believe  without  believing,  to  pos- 
sess a  means  of  believing,  a  semblance  of  faith,  in  hours  when  the  spiritual 
life  declines  and  we  believe  no  longer.  Such  a  means  does  not  exist;  it 
must  not  exist.  It  must  not  be  possible  for  us  to  imagine  ourselves  safe 
because  we  have  taken  shelter  in  correct  beliefs  or  in  practices  of  an 
official  devotion.  The  just  shall  live  by  faith.  And  faith  is  an  energy 
which  takes  hold  on  divine  grace  and  makes  it  active  in  a  human  life 
dedicated  to  the  service  of  God  and  the  brethren.  An  authority  which 
should  absolve  from  faith  by  sanctioning  a  false  confidence  in  belief 
would  not  be  a  gospel  authority."  1 

This  is  perfectly  true.  When  life  is  languishing  and  dying  in 
indifference  or  in  sin  it  avails  not  to  resort  to  authority  or  criticism ;  we 
must  betake  ourselves  to  repentance  and  prayer.  The  gate  is  narrow 
which  opens  upon  the  way  of  life ;  if  after  passing  through  it  we  wander 
from  that  way,  we  can  return  to  it  only  by  entering  again  through  the 
same  door,  for  there  is  no  other. 

1 L.  Monod,  "  Le  problfcme  de  1'autoritt,"  2d  ed.,  p.  125, 


CHRISTIANITY  AND   AUTHORITATIVE  FORMS      277 

As  for  the  future  of  the  Christian  religion,  why  should  we  fear  for  it, 
if  it  is  a  work  of  God?  Does  it  seem  to  you  more  fragile  because  it  is 
a  life  rather  than  a  belief?  Please  observe  this:  If  the  individual 
organism  is  above  all  things  precarious,  subject  to  accidents,  to  maladies, 
and  death,  on  the  other  hand  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  more  per- 
sistent, more  durable,  more  fruitful,  than  the  power  of  life.  Physiolo- 
gists tell  us  that  death  itself  is  only  one  of  its  forms  and  functions.  The 
smallest  germ  suffices  to  carry  life  where  it  never  was  before,  and  to 
rekindle  it  when  it  seemed  extinct.  We  may  cease  to  be  its  organs,  but 
it  will  never  be  without  organs,  there  will  always  be  those  to  propagate 
it,  for  its  all-powerful  force  is  incessantly  creating  them.  It  is  the  fruit 
of  the  Spirit.  But  the  Spirit  never  ceases  its  activity.  It  has  been  at 
work  since  the  world  began,  it  will  continue  to  work  until  its  end.  Ex- 
ternal authorities  have  more  than  once  changed  in  the  history  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  the  Spirit  abides.  From  generation  to  generation  he  has  made 
it  new.  If  Jesus  were  with  us  now,  he  would  say,  with  that  voice  of  his 
that  always  brings  assurance  to  timid  hearts :  "  Oh,  men  of  little  faith, 
all  that  has  grown  old  and  vanished  with  the  religion  of  authority  is 
empty  wine-skins  and  worn-out  forms.  Suffer  the  religion  of  the  Spirit 
to  appear ! " 

A  long  silence  followed.  My  friend  and  I  remained  in  profound 
meditation,  following,  with  a  common  emotion,  the  leadings  of  our  indi- 
vidual thought.  Each  felt  that  we  had  exhausted  the  subject  of  our 
conversation.  Adelphi,  however,  felt  impelled  to  pursue  it  farther.  He 
did  so  in  the  following  words. 

m 

Why  Has  the  Christian  Religion  Hitherto  Taken  On  Authoritative 

Forms? 

ADELPHI. — Permit  me  to  go  on  to  the  end  of  my  questioning.     This  is 
the  last  of  it. 


278      CHRISTIANITY  AND   AUTHORITATIVE  FORMS 

How  do  you  explain  the  fact  that  all  Christian  Churches,  in  every 
age,  have  establishel  within  themselves  some  infallible  dogmatic  authority 
to  guarantee  the  truth  of  their  teaching?  If  the  Christian  religion  has 
till  now  been  kept  alive  only  by  such  an  organ,  can  you  hope  that  it  will 
continue  to  live  after  losing  it? 

/. — Consider  this.  You  recognise  that  these  infallible  authorities 
have  changed  in  the  course  of  ages.  In  the  time  of  Ignatius,  infallibility, 
the  organ  of  the  truth,  resided  in  the  parochial  bishop;  in  the  time  of 
Cyprian,  in  the  entire  episcopal  body ;  Gerson  and  the  Fathers  of  Basel 
and  Constance  found  it  in  the  council;  they  of  the  Vatican  found  it  in 
the  person  of  the  Pope.  Protestants  rejected  all  these  authorities,  and 
in  the  eighteenth  century  substituted  for  them  the  letter  of  Scripture, 
and  even  in  certain  places  their  Confessions  of  Faith.  ^Ve  note,  however, 
that  certain  communities,  such  as  the  Quakers,  have  managed  perfectly 
well  to  do  without  any  exterior  authority  of  this  kind.  This  being  the 
case,  how  are  we  to  maintain  that  Christianity  is  inseparable  from 
authorities  which  may  change  and  disappear  without  checking  its  prog- 
ress in  activity?  Do  you  suppose  that  the  same  objection  was  not  made 
to  Luther — "  By  undermining  the  authority  of  tradition,  which  has 
reigned  till  now,  you  leave  the  Christian  religion  without  support  and 
exposed  to  destruction  "  ?  Has  it  been  less  alive  or  less  fecund  since 
then? 

I  might  rest  with  these  observations,  but  it  is  best  to  go  to  the  root 
of  the  matter.  This  persistence  of  authoritative  forms  is  a  curious 
phenomenon  in  Christianity,  which  was  proclaimed  to  the  world  as  a  reli- 
gion of  the  Spirit,  and  which  in  fact  is  such  by  its  essential  principle. 
Is  this  phenomenon  inexplicable? 

I  can  explain  it  in  two  ways.  The  first  is  psychological.  An  inno- 
cent and  natural  delusion  of  popular  faith  in  its  first  stage  of  develop- 
ment transfers  the  supernatural  and  divine  character  of  its  object  to 
those  organs  by  which  the  divine  communicates  itself  or  makes  itself 
known.  Thus  among  savage  peoples  the  sorcerer  is  invested  with 


CHRISTIANITY  AND   AUTHORITATIVE   FORMS      279 

magical  potency.  Thus  the  sibyl  is  endowed  with  a  supernatural  power 
of  sight.  Thus  the  words  of  the  Catholic  priest  for  the  people  of  his 
flock,  and  even  those  of  the  Protestant  pastor  for  the  ignorant  among 
his  people,  become  the  very  word  of  God.  No  otherwise  have  the 
Catholic  Church  and  the  Bible,  both  of  them  human  organs  of  divine 
revelation,  been  endowed  by  Christian  dogmatism  with  the  privilege  of 
infallibility,  and  many  people  cannot  understand  how  this  privilege  can 
be  so  much  as  questioned  by  any  but  unbelievers.  This  is  why  all  the 
religions  of  antiquity  were  religions  of  authority. 

In  the  second  place  there  is  a  historic  reason.  We  find  in  the  history 
of  civilisations  a  law  that  the  mental  and  social  forms,  ideas,  and  customs 
of  earlier  ages  long  persist,  and  project  themselves  into  the  higher  civili- 
sation which  believes  itself  to  have  gone  far  beyond  them.  Nowhere 
are  these  survivals  of  the  past  more  frequent  than  in  the  history  of  reli- 
gions. For  example,  Christianity  has  replaced  paganism  and  Judaism 
as  a  social  and  popular  religion,  at  least  in  the  Western  world.  But 
the  older  religions  have  not  failed  to  take  their  reprisals.  How  often 
all  along  the  history  of  the  Church  may  we  not  discern  them,  scarcely 
disguised  under  Christian  forms?  Is  not  the  Catholic  notion  of  the 
Church  essentially  sacerdotal?  Are  not  the  relations  of  the  individual 
to  divinity  subordinated  to  his  relation  to  the  priest,  as  in  the  ancient 
religions?  Are  not  the  very  words  the  same  in  both  cases,  sacerdos, 
pontifex?  In  the  Catholic  hierarchy  does  not  the  Pope  occupy  the  place 
and  bear  the  name,  "  Sovereign  Pontiff,"  Pontifex  Maximus,  which  be- 
longed to  the  official  head  of  the  Roman  religion  in  the  time  of  Augustus? 
Then,  as  now,  the  clergy  formed  a  hierarchy  and  a  caste,  endowed  with 
religious  privileges  which  elevated  them  above  the  people.  In  both  cases, 
regularity  of  priesthood  is  necessary  to  the  efficacy  of  the  opus  opera- 
turn^  to  the  distribution  of  the  sacrament  and  the  consummation  of  the 
sacrifice ;  for  wherever  there  is  a  hierarchy  and  a  priesthood  there  must 
be  a  sacrifice  and  an  altar.  You  may  carry  this  parallelism  through 
the  history  of  the  constitution  of  the  Catholic  Church,  its  dogma,  its 


280      CHRISTIANITY  AND   AUTHORITATIVE  FORMS 

worship,  the  place  given  in  it  to  the  Virgin,  to  saints  and  angels  and 
archangels,  forming  a  series  whose  steps  correspond  to  the  heroes,  demi- 
gods and  goddesses  of  former  days:  will  you  dispute  that  in  all  this 
there  has  been  a  striking  resurrection  of  that  paganism  which  Roman 
Catholicism  believes  itself  to  have  destroyed? 

The  same  is  also  the  case  in  Protestantism  with  what  I  may  dare  to 
call  the  superstition  of  the  Bible,  of  the  divine  authority  of  the  sacred 
letter.  The  dogma  of  verbal  inspiration  is  not  more  original  nor  more 
new.  It  was  long  ago  completely  elaborated  and  established  in  the 
Judaism  that  preceded  Jesus  Christ.  Protestant  theologians  of  the 
seventeenth  century  were  able  to  do  nothing  better  than  take  up  and 
revive  the  work  of  the  Rabbins. 

How,  then,  shall  we  maintain  that  these  authoritative  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity were  original  with  it,  or  are  the  results  of  its  principle,  when 
we  see  them  insinuating  themselves  into  it  from  without,  and,  having 
made  themselves  one  with  it,  dragging  it  down  to  the  level  of  the  earlier 
religions  which  it  believed  itself  to  have  abolished?  It  was  impossible 
that  the  spiritual  and  entirely  ideal  principle  of  the  gospel  should  in  the 
very  outset  realise  itself  as  a  social  and  popular  religion  without  being 
condemned  to  such  an  alloy  by  the  very  force  of  things.  Forms  of 
authority  were  a  necessity  to  it.  It  would  be  as  unreasonable  to  be  scan- 
dalised because  they  temporarily  prevailed  as  it  would  be  to  declare  them 
eternal.  The  truth  is  that  through  the  Christian  ages  they  have  never 
been  in  definitive  and  peaceful  possession.  There  has  always  been  a 
struggle  between  the  true  Christian  spirit  and  that  ponderous  inheritance 
of  the  past  which,  however,  has  never  been  able  quite  to  overpower  it. 
It  has  at  last  triumphantly  shaken  off  the  incubus,  and  to  it  the  future 
is  promised.  But  now  it  is  like  the  captive  bird  which  sees  its  cage 
falling  to  pieces  around  it.  It  has  long  been  imprisoned,  but  now  it 
is  singing  over  the  fragments,  conscious  of  its  wings  and  of  liberty  to 
use  them.  We  may  call  the  two  completed  periods  in  the  history  of  the 
Christian  religion  the  pagan  and  the  Jewish  periods ;  the  truly  Christian 


CHRISTIANITY  AND   AUTHORITATIVE   FORMS      281 

period  is  about  to  begin.  The  religion  of  the  priesthood  and  the  reli- 
gion of  the  letter  are  outworn  and  dying  before  our  eyes,  making  way 
for  the  religion  of  the  Spirit. 

Adelphi. — You  are  continually  repeating  that  expression.  Can  you 
define  a  little  more  clearly  what  you  understand  by  the  religion  of  the 
Spirit? 

/. — It  gives  me  far  more  pleasure  to  reply  than  you  to  ask.  Be 
assured  that  I  no  more  invented  the  expression  than  the  thing.  It  be- 
longs to  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  first  opposed  the  ministry  of  the  Spirit 
to  that  of  the  letter,  thus  strongly  characterising  the  old  and  the  new 
covenants  by  their  principles  of  action.  He  immediately  added,  "  The 
letter  kills,  but  the  Spirit  makes  alive."  In  this  antithesis  Paul's  thought 
is  very  clearly  evident.  The  letter,  the  alphabetic  sign,  characterises  the 
Mosaic  religion  according  to  the  form  of  its  historic  appearance,  its  mode 
of  being  and  action.  Written  upon  the  stone,  the  Commandment  of 
God  remains  exterior  to  man,  both  as  an  order  and  a  menace;  it  enters 
into  conflict  with  the  carnal  will,  provokes  it  to  transgression ;  engenders 
the  consciousness  of  sin,  that,  is,  of  condemnation  and  of  death.  The 
letter  kills.  The  Spirit  characterises  the  religion  of  the  Gospel,  accord- 
ing to  the  very  nature  of  the  inward  and  moral  relation  which  it  estab- 
lishes between  God  and  man,  according  to  the  mode  of  being  of  the  gospel 
and  the  principle  of  its  action.  The  religious  relation  between  the  Chris- 
tian and  his  Father  is  no  longer  ruled  by  a  written  letter,  fixed  and  dead, 
but  by  a  living  inspiration,  which  gives  strength  to  do  the  will  of  God 
in  the  very  act  of  revealing  it.  The  Spirit  is  life,  because  it  is  the 
creative  power  itself ;  it  saves  the  sinner,  regenerates  him,  makes  him  live. 

This  being  the  case,  it  seems  to  me  that  you  should  understand  what 
is  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  the  religious  relation  realised  in  pure 
spirituality.  It  is  God  and  man  both  conceived  under  the  category  of 
the  spirit,  mutually  interpenetrating  and  thus  arriving  at  full  com- 
munion. By  definition  bodies  are  mutually  impenetrable,  in  the  sense 
that  two  cannot  occupy  the  same  place ;  they  can  be  individualised  only 


282      CHRISTIANITY  AND   AUTHORITATIVE   FORMS 

\ 

by  being  isolated  and  opposed  to  one  another,  nor  can  they  be  in  har- 
mony except  as  they  reach  an  equilibrium  by  balancing  themselves  one 
against  the  other.  Entirely  otherwise  are  the  relations  of  spirits. 
Their  essential  tendency  is  to  live  a  mutual  life,  to  come  together  in  a 
higher  common  life.  What  the  law  of  gravitation  is  for  maintaining 
harmony  in  the  physical  world,  that  love  is,  and  so  it  works  in  the  spir- 
itual and  moral  world.  Love  is  the  vital  force  of  spirits.  By  going  out 
of  themselves,  sharing  themselves,  giving  themselves,  they  realise  their 
individuality,  in  the  very  act  of  entering  into  union  with  one  another. 
The  religion  of  the  Spirit  is  the  religion  of  love. 

As  the  ultimate  power  of  moral  development  in  the  human  being, 
the  Spirit  of  God  brings  to  it  no  constraint  from  without ;  it  determines 
and  animates  it  from  within,  and  thus  maintains  its  Ijfe.  Thenceforth 
there  is  no  dualism  between  human  morality  and  the  higher  angelic  life. 
The  performance  of  natural  duties,  the  regular  exercise  of  all  human 
faculties,  the  progress  of  culture  as  of  righteousness,  these  make  the 
perfection  of  the  Christian  life.  When  the  Christian  religion  becomes 
an  inward  reality,  a  fact  of  consciousness,  it  is  nothing  other  than  con- 
sciousness raised  to  its  highest  power.  The  religious  ideal  and  the  human 
ideal,  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the  highest  good,  are  identical.  Those 
oppositions  have  vanished  which  gave  birth  to  conflicts  and  servitudes. 
The  religion  of  the  Spirit  is  the  religion  of  liberty. 

In  the  degree  in  which  God,  by  his  Spirit,  lives  and  works  in  us,  we 
live  and  work  in  him ;  we  come  out  of  our  natural  egotism,  we  are  ever- 
more perfectly  set  free  from  the  bondage  of  the  flesh  and  of  sin.  To 
be  set  free  from  evil  is  to  be  consecrated  to  God.  The  religion  of  the 
Spirit  is  the  religion  of  holiness. 

To  aspire  after  this  spiritual  religion  is  therefore  not  to  devise  a 
new  religion,  but  to  return  to  the  true  Christian  principle.  It  is  to 
grasp  the  primitive  gospel  in  its  reality,  to  follow  the  Reformers  in 
clearing  it  of  all  human  additions,  so  restoring  its  true  strength.  The 
principle  of  the  Reformation  abides  permanently  in  the  Church.  What- 


THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS;  ITS  FORM  283 

ever  may  be  the  importance  of  the  event  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
Reformation  is  something  still  to  be  done,  something  to  be  perpetually 
done  anew,  something  for  which  Luther  and  Calvin  simply  made  ready 
a  fair  field.1  You  recognise  the  words  of  Vinet,  the  great  prophet  of 
the  religion  of  the  Spirit  in  our  age  and  country.  I  give  you  another 
utterance  of  his  by  way  of  closing  this  long  conversation.  "  Protes- 
tantism is  for  me  only  the  starting  point ;  my  religion  is  beyond.  I  may, 
as  a  Protestant,  hold  some  Catholic  opinions,  and  who  knows  that  I  do 
not?  That  which  I  absolutely  repudiate  is  authority."  The  time  has 
come,  it  seems  to  me,  for  those  who  have  broken  with  authority  in  their 
inner  life  to  break  definitely  with  it  in  their  theology. 

Adelphl. — Thank  you.  I  dare  not  say  that  you  have  silenced  all  my 
doubts  or  done  away  with  all  my  scruples.  But  I  understand  your  pur- 
pose better,  and  I  no  longer  feel  free  to  judge  it.  I  would  wish  to  be 
initiated  into  the  religion  and  theology  of  the  Spirit.  Send  me  the 
conclusion  of  your  work  as  soon  as  you  can;  then  we  will  take  up  the 
subject  again.  Adieu. 


CHAPTER   II 

JESUS  CHEIST  THE  FOUNDER  OF  THE   RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIEIT 

I 

The  Teachmg  of  Jesus;  its  Form 

THE  gospel,  in  its  very  principle,  implied  the  abrogation  of  religions 
of  authority,  and  inaugurated  as  a  fact  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  The 
religious  relation  which  it  instituted  between  God  and  man  was  not  de- 
termined by  the  necessary  mediation  of  a  priest,  nor  by  the  obligatory 
1  Vinet,  "LitttraL  au  XlXme  sifecle,"  iii.  v.  392. 


384  THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS;  ITS  FORM 

letter  of  a  law,  but  by  the  inner  bond  of  love,  by  the  consciousness  of  a 
filial  relation  between  child  and  father.  Thus  the  centre  of  gravity  of 
the  religious  life  was  changed  from  without  to  within,  from  the  institu- 
tion to  the  conscience.  The  institution  was  not  by  that  act  abolished, 
but  it  became  an  accessory ;  it  no  longer  appeared  to  be  indispensable,  and 
was  doomed  to  be  modified  or  to  pass  away  as  soon  as  it  was  seen  to  be 
useless,  or  inimical  to  true  piety. 

Jesus  was  entirely  aware  of  the  revolution  which  he  was  setting  in 
operation.  Of  all  his  utterances  there  is  not  one  which  is  farther  re- 
moved from  the  mode  of  thought  of  his  time,  and  consequently  more 
authentic  than  this :  "  The  rulers  of  the  Gentiles  lord  it  over  them,  and 
their  great  ones  exercise  authority  over  them.  Not  so  shall  it  be  among 
you ;  but  whosoever  would  become  great  among  you  shall  be  your  serv- 
ant." And  again,  in  another  connection,  but  in  the  closest  relations 
with  the  first  declaration :  "  But  be  not  ye  called  Rabbi ;  for  one  is  your 
teacher  and  all  ye  are  brethren.  And  call  no  man  your  father  on  the 
earth,  for  but  one  is  your  Father,  even  he  who  is  in  heaven."  Jesus  was 
not  considering  merely  names  and  titles  whose  use  is  regulated  by  the 
sense  in  which  they  are  employed.  He  was  attacking  and  condemning 
the  very  principle  of  a  religious  hierarchy,  which  in  the  earlier  religions 
had  divided  men  into  two  classes,  putting  the  consciences  of  one  class 
under  the  tutelage  of  the  other.  What  he  proclaimed  was  fraternal 
equality,  the  spiritual  independence  of  Christians,  founded  upon  their 
filial  relation  to  the  heavenly  father.1 

It  is  true  that  in  the  same  discourse  Christ  insists  upon  his  own 
unique  and  entirely  special  function  of  religious  teacher,  his  teachings 
and  his  person  being  the  means  by  which  his  disciples  are  led  into  this 
personal,  direct  filial  communion  with  the  Father.  Under  this  head  he 
is  entitled  to  and  possesses  a  real  authority.  What  is  the  nature  of  this 
authority,  and  how  he  exercises  it,  is  what  we  have  now  to  learn. 

Let  us  take  as  our  starting  point  the  reflection  by  which  the  first 
Evangelist  closes  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount :  "  The  multitudes  were 

1  Appendix  LXXXVI. 


THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS;  ITS  FORM  285 

astonished  at  his  teaching;  for  he  taught  as  one  having  authority,  and 
not  as  their  scribes."  We  gain  a  true  idea  of  the  contrast  between  Jesus 
and  the  scribes  established  by  this  text,  when  we  become  clearly  aware 
of  the  difference  between  teaching  as  having  authority,  and  teaching 
by  authority.  The  scribes  who  sat  "  in  Moses'  seat  "  spoke  by  author- 
ity. Their  minute  and  severe  orthodoxy  was  invested  with  the  resolute 
objectivity  and  infallibility  of  a  sacred  text.  But  in  the  souls  both  of 
those  who  taught  and  those  who  heard  it  was  lacking  in  that  special 
sanction  which  the  human  conscience  gives  to  truth,  and  which  the  truth 
must  have  if  it  is  to  appear  divine^  and  take  entire  possession  of  us. 
This  is  why  a  teaching  by  authority  is  without  real  power  and  without 
authority. 

Jesus,  on  the»other  hand,  invoked  no  external  sanction;  he  not  only 
did  not  shelter  himself  behind  the  authority  of  Moses,  but  he  felt  no 
scruple  nor  embarrassment  in  taking  exception  to  the  venerated  law  of 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  correcting  and  completing  it  with  a  freedom 
which  often  brought  upon  him  the  accusation  of  heresy  and  blasphemy. 
In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  he  did  not  once  appeal  to  miracles;  if  at 
other  times  he  refers  to  his  works  of  healing  it  is  only  by  way  of  warn- 
ing, to  awaken  the  attention  and  the  consciences  of  his  hearers,  never  to 
justify  a  doctrine  which  would  not  find  its  highest  sanction  in  the  volun- 
tary adherence  of  the  conscience.  He  steadfastly  refused  to  perform 
any  miracle  to  overcome  the  incredulity  of  those  who  argued  with  him, 
and  always  fell  back  upon  this  as  the  only  decisive  argument :  "  If  any 
man  wills  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father,  he  will  know  of  my  teaching, 
whether  it  be  of  God  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself."  It  is  before  all 
else  the  virtue,  the  efficacy  of  his  word  which  gives  it  authority.  His 
teaching  forces  itself  upon  souls  because  it  takes  hold  of  them  and  subju- 
gates them  as  the  truth  itself  does  when  it  shows  itself  in  its  own  lumi- 
nous evidence — as  holiness  and  love  do  when,  mingling  in  one,  they  reveal 
themselves  by  the  power  of  their  own  radiance.  Doubtless  every  sen- 
tence of  Jesus  has  revealing  power ;  we  may  call  it  a  ray  from  heaven  if 


286  THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS;  ITS  FORM 

we  will,  but  conscience  welcomes  and  embraces  it  as  a  light  essentially  its 
own.  Thus  his  words  so  incorporate  themselves  in  the  conscience  that 
it  can  neither  forget  nor  repudiate  them  without  repudiating  itself. 

Test  this  statement  by  different  parts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
The  human  conscience  may  in  a  lower  degree  have  responded  to  moral 
prescriptions  which  Jesus  criticises,  but  once  having  heard  the  new 
voice,  how  shall  it  resist  it  or  oppose  its  utterances  ?  Must  it  not  forever 
accept  the  Master's  teachings  about  the  true  brotherly  love,  the  purity 
of  the  inward  eye,  the  beginning  of  sin  in  lust,  the  love  of  enemies,  the 
forgiveness  of  offences,  secret  prayer,  true  piety?  This  being  so,  do 
you  not  understand  the  assurance  and  the  sovereign  authority  with  which 
Jesus  proclaims  the  new  law  and  preaches  his  gospel,  opposes  his  dictum 
to  that  of  the  elders  and  even  to  that  of  Moses?  In  his  consciousness 
reigned  such  a  divine  illumination,  so  profound  and  calm  an  assurance, 
so  clear  a  perception,  that  all  upright  souls  would  equally  and  at  once 
recognise  "  the  word  of  God  "  which  he  had  within  himself,  so  that  he 
could  feel  no  hesitation  or  doubt ;  to  himself  and  to  others  he  could  say : 
"  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away." 
For  in  fact  moral  truth  is  for  the  conscience  as  strong  and  eternal  as 
God  himself.1 

Therefore,  Jesus  was  not  concerned  to  display  his  miraculous  gifts 
and  vouchers  to  support  the  truth  of  his  gospel,  but  rather  preached 
the  gospel  in  order  to  awaken  souls  subdued  and  touched  to  some  con- 
ception of  the  dignity  of  his  person  and  the  greatness  of  his  work.  He 
does  not  command  belief;  he  creates  and  inspires  confidence,  which  is 
something  entirely  different.  Instead  of  terrorising  and  stupefying  the 
mind  he  wakens  it  and  stimulates  it  to  activity.  How  often  he  bewails 
the  slowness  and  dulness  of  apprehension  of  which  his  hearers  and  his 
disciples  give  evidence !  He  uses  the  method  of  parables  to  no  other  end. 
His  parables  are  sealed  to  inert  or  ill-disposed  consciences,  but  they  fly 

1  The  apostle  Paul  expresses  the  same  assurance,  the  same  kind  of  moral  invinci- 
bility, in  Gal.  i.  6-9.    Luther,  also,  in  many  places. 


THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS;  ITS  FORM  287 

open  like  rich  treasure-houses  to  those  who  thirst  for  righteousness  and 
eternal  life,  the  best  goods  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  "  He  that  asketh 
receiveth,  he  that  seeketh  findeth,  and  to  him  that  knocks  it  shall  be 
opened."  Above  all,  he  seeks  to  awake  the  needs  that  he  desires  to  sat- 
isfy. "  Blessed  are  the  poor !  " — to  create  the  hunger  and  thirst  that 
he  intends  to  fill :  "  Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst !  " — to  incite 
to  a  search  which  he  will  change  into  possession.  The  spiritual  life  is 
not  a  state,  it  is  an  aspiration,  a  desire,  a  prayer,  an  act.  Hence  the 
profound  and  most  accurate  meaning  of  those  paradoxical  sayings  which 
self-satisfied  devotees,  the  Pharisees  of  all  periods,  can  never  understand : 
"  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be 
taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath.  Take  heed  how  ye  hear;  he  that 
hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear;  with  what  measure  ye  mete  it  shall  be 
measured  unto  you." 

Jesus'  method  of  teaching  is  then  the  opposite  of  that  of  the  scribes, 
that  is,  the  method  of  authority.  It  is  rather  a  sort  of  divine  maieutic, 
tending  to  give  birth  to  a  new  life  in  the  heart,  to  create  the  spiritual 
man  in  the  carnal  and  animal  man.2 

To  such  a  purpose  every  method  of  authority  would  have  been  un- 
equal and  contradictory.  The  words  of  Jesus  do  not  find  their  end  in 
themselves — they  are  only  means.  This  is  why  they  are  so  free,  so 
suited  to  the  occasion,  so  paradoxical,  so  foreign  and  rebellious  to  any 
systematic  order. 

Purposing  above  all  things  to  arouse  his  hearers  to  religious  and 
moral  activity,  the  Master  always  places  himself  in  the  circle  of  ideas 
in  which  they  live,  reasons  according  to  their  logic,  willingly  uses  argu- 
ments ad  hominem,  clothes  his  thought  in  images  and  even  in  enigmas, 
sharpens  all  his  words  to  a  point  which  can  penetrate  the  hardened  heart, 
disturb  the  satisfied  devotee,  rouse  inattentive  souls.  Being  subject  to 
no  authority  except  that  of  God,  they  are  absolutely  unfit  to  serve  as  a 
fulcrum  for  a  new  religion  of  authority.  To  undertake,  from  a  super- 
'Matt.  vii.  6-8;  Mark  iv.  24,  26.  'Matt,  xviii.  3,  xix.  14;  John  iii.  3-8. 


288  JESUS  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

stitious  notion  of  piety,  to  reduce  them  to  dogmatic  formulas  is  to  show 
a  lack  of  comprehension  of  their  spirit,  their  purpose,  and  their  value. 

The  authority  of  Jesus  is  the  authority  of  the  things  that  he  teaches, 
the  divine  work  which  he  carries  on  in  the  hearts  of  men.  It  is  the 
authority  of  his  person,  if  we  will,  so  far  as  his  person  is  the  incarnation 
of  his  gospel,  and  as  both  are  clothed  with  the  ascendency  of  holiness  and 
the  conquering  charm  of  love.  He  proposes  to  men  the  divine  verities 
which  were  revealed  to  him  in  his  consciousness,  and  by  proposing  he 
imposes  them,  or  rather,  they  impose  themselves  by  their  own  virtue.  By 
an  all-powerful  moral  contagion  he  communicates  to  others  the  divine 
life  which  is  in  himself.  He  believes  in  the  spiritual  vocation  of  the 
human  soul,  in  its  affinity  with  the  divine ;  he  has  only  to  put  it  in  con- 
tact with  truth  and  life  and  it  receives  both  as  intrinsic,  to  itself. 

His  word  is  like  a  seed  scattered  with  full  hands  in  the  confidence 
that  it  will  never  fall  upon  good  ground  without  taking  root  and  multi- 
plying indefinitely.  His  authority  over  the  conscience  is  of  the  same 
nature  as  that  of  God, — inward,  moral, — and,  by  that  very  fact,  sov- 
ereign ;  it  is  the  authority  not  of  the  letter  which  oppresses  and  kills,  but 
of  the  Spirit  which  makes  alive.1 

II 

Jesus  and  the  Old  Testament 

THE  scribes  one  day  brought  before  Jesus  the  question  of  authority. 
"  By  what  authority,"  they  asked  him,  "  doest  thou  these  things  ?  " 
The  Master  replied  by  another  question :  "  The  baptism  of  John ;  was 
it  from  heaven  or  of  men  ?  "  This  was  according  to  his  custom  to  trans- 
fer the  debate  from  the  field  of  scholasticism  to  that  of  conscience;  to 
invoke  the  witness  of  the  latter  rather  than  that  of  an  officially  delegated 
or  exterior  authority.  He  might  have  appealed  to  Scripture  to  arbi- 
trate between  himself  and  his  adversaries.  Why  did  he  not  do  so? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  attitude  toward  the  law  and  the  prophets 
1  Appendix  LXXXVII. 


JESUS  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  289 

was  entirely  different  from  that  of  the  Pharisees,  and  he  was  still  less 
in  accord  with  them  as  to  the  proper  way  of  reading  the  Scriptures  than 
as  to  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  them. 

The  attitude  of  Jesus  in  this  regard  was  twofold.  On  one  hand,  he 
recognised  in  Judaism  a  divine  dispensation,  the  religion  of  the  true 
God,  and  consequently  given  by  God.  His  religious  consciousness  was 
not  only  rooted  in  this  age-long  tradition,  it  lived  in  it  and  drew  from  it 
unceasing  edification.  Jesus  was  ever  in  intimate  and  familiar  com- 
munion with  the  patriarchs,  the  prophets,  and  all  the  "  men  of  God  "  who 
had  preceded  him.  So  with  regard  to  the  Scriptures  which  made  him 
acquainted  with  them.  He  never  concerns  himself  with  such  historic  and 
literary  questions  as  might  arise  from  the  character  of  the  sacred  col- 
lection. He  finds  in  it  the  Spirit  of  the  Father,  his  own  animating 
Spirit,  and  consequently  it  is  to  him  "  the  Word  of  God."  We  must 
therefore  not  be  too  much  surprised  when,  from  his  purely  religious  and 
moral  standpoint,  he  undertakes  to  show  how  he  values  the  Law  and 
the  Prophets  by  protesting  that  he  proposes  not  to  abolish,  but  to  fulfil 
them,  even  adding  that  "  till  heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one  jot  or  one 
tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  away  from  the  law,  till  all  things  be  accom- 
plished." * 

Yet  it  is  no  less  evident  that  here  as  elsewhere  he  uses  Scripture  in 
sovereign  liberty.  He  always  instinctively  goes  straight  to  the  moral 
and  religious  element  of  the  sacred  books,  and  takes  account  of  nothing 
else.  The  starting  point  of  his  exegesis  is  therefore  essentially  different 
from  that  of  the  literal  legalism  of  the  rabbis  or  the  allegorical  method 
of  Philo  and  the  Gnostics.  By  an  elective  affinity,  the  more  unerring 
because  anterior  to  all  reasoning,  his  consciousness  assimilates  all  that  is 
homogeneous  to  it,  and  by  that  act  transforms  it  into  something  appar- 
ently both  old  and  new,  most  conservative  and  most  revolutionary. 
Jesus  never  quotes  a  text  as  of  authority  because  it  is  a  part  of  Holy 
Scripture,  but  always  as  having  authority  in  itself,  by  virtue  of  the 
sentiment  it  expresses.  Unhesitatingly  and  without  compunction,  there- 

1  Matt.  v.  17,  18. 


290  JESUS  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

fore,  he  sets  aside  all  such  as  contradict  his  own  inward  experience,  and 
emphasises  those  which  confirm  and  sanction  it.  To  the  prescriptions 
of  Leviticus  he  opposes  the  prophetic  word,  "  I  desire  mercy  and  not 
sacrifice."  He  cites  the  example  of  David  and  of  the  priests  themselves 
against  the  rigour  of  Pharisaic  jurisprudence  concerning  the  Sabbath. 
When  the  authorisation  of  divorce  accorded  by  Moses  is  brought  before 
him,  he  sets  it  aside  as  a  concession  to  hardness  of  heart.1  Thus  the  law 
seems  to  lose  all  its  arbitrary  precepts.  He  sums  it  up  in  two  command- 
ments, love  of  God  and  of  the  neighbour.  He  sets  this  moral  substance 
apart  from  all  the  rest,  and  shows  all  the  rest  to  be  fulfilled  in  it. 

The  Pharisees  made  no  mistake  as  to  the  outcome  of  this  method. 
They  accused  Jesus  of  being  a  transgressor  of  the  law,  a  despiser  of 
Moses,  an  enemy  of  the  temple  and  the  established  religion ;  and  in  truth 
he  did  deduce  an  entirely  new  religion  from  the  old ;  out  of  its  legal  forms 
of  righteousness  he  drew  an  entirely  new  principle  of  righteousness,  from 
its  narrow  morals  a  higher  morality ;  and  if  it  was  his  purpose  to  destroy 
only  by  fulfilling,  his  fulfilment  was  in  fact  nothing  less  than  a  radical 
destruction. 

It  is  easy  to  concede  to  Jesus  the  liberty  of  which  he  gives  proof 
with  respect  to  ancient  Scriptures  and  traditional  institutions.  But 
do  his  disciples  share  it?  Was  it  not  an  exceptional,  divine  prerogative, 
reserved  to  the  Messiah,  as  the  founder  of  the  new  covenant?  So  to 
judge  would  be  to  show  an  entire  want  of  apprehension  of  the  method 
of  Jesus,  and  the  critical  principle  by  virtue  of  which  he  carried  on  and 
completed  his  reforming  work. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  his  religious  consciousness,  by  a  secret 
affinity,  an  infallible  inspiration,  seized  upon  the  moral  substance,  the 
purely  religious  element  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  and  actually  dis- 
engaged from  it  the  germ  of  a  new  religion,  a  worship  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  letting  all  the  rest  fall  away  like  dead  leaves.  But  further,  the 
constant  effort  of  Jesus  in  the  training  of  his  disciples  was  to  create  in 
them  a  moral  consciousness  identical  with  his  own,  and  by  this  means  to 
'Matt.  ix.  13,  xii.  3-5,  six.  3-9. 


JESUS  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  291 

put  them  in  a  condition  to  carry  on  his  work  of  criticism,  to  pursue  his 
task  of  distinguishing  between  that  which  is  eternal  and  that  which  is 
perishable  in  the  Old  Testament.  Jesus  did  not  employ  a  didactic  process 
in  this  work.  He  laid  down  its  principles,  applying  them,  by  way  of 
example,  to  a  few  particular  cases,  such  as  the  Sabbath,  fasting,  food, 
not  to  limit  the  reformation,  but  to  introduce  it,  to  reveal  its  spirit,  and 
open  the  way  for  its  further  progress. 

Therefore  he  authoritatively  abrogated  nothing;  he  justified  to  the 
consciences  of  the  least  of  his  disciples  the  abrogations  which  he  pro- 
nounced; he  wanted  them  to  understand  what  he  was  doing,  and  to  this 
end  he  always  put  in  the  clearest  light  the  general  principle  which  in- 
spired his  acts.  But  this  principle  was  drawn,  not  from  heaven  nor  from 
any  supernatural  authority,  but  from  the  very  depths  of  the  human 
consciousness,  so  that,  once  it  was  proclaimed,  conscience  must  recognise 
it  as  its  own,  and  could  not  let  it  go. 

There  are  abundant  examples  of  his  method.  One  day  the  Pharisees 
are  scandalised  at  seeing  Jesus  receiving  and  eating  with  publicans  and 
people  of  bad  reputation,  and  Jesus  replies,  "  Mercy  is  of  more  value 
than  sacrifice ;  go  ye  and  learn  what  that  means,  and  then  you  will  under- 
stand why  the  physician  goes  to  them  who  are  sick  and  not  to  them  who 
are  well."  *  Setting  aside  the  obligation  to  fast,  he  refers  to  the  pop- 
ular experience  that  it  is  not  well  to  sew  a  piece  of  new  cloth  (the  gospel) 
upon  an  old  garment  (the  old  religion  of  outward  practices).  Discus- 
sions concerning  the  Sabbath  lead  up  to  two  general  theses :  "  The  Sab- 
bath is  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,"  and  "  It  is  lawful 
[and  therefore  obligatory]  to  do  good  on  the  Sabbath  day  "  as  on  other 
days.  Especially  noteworthy  is  his  condemnation  of  the  Korban  of  the 
Pharisees,  which  absolved  a  son  from  duty  to  father  and  mother  on  the 
pretext  that  he  had  offered  to  God,  that  is,  to  the  temple,  the  equivalent 
of  what  he  ought  to  have  given  them.  As  to  clean  and  unclean  meats, 
and  legal  uncleannesses,  what  a  radical  overturning  of  Jewish  ideas  of 
devotion  lies  in  the  one  reflection  that  nothing  that  enters  a  man  can 
'Matt.  ix.  10-13;  Luke  v.  29-32. 


292  THE   PERSON    OF   JESUS   CHRIST 

soil  him  morally,  but  only  that  which  proceeds  from  his  heart ! *  What 
else  is  this  than  the  verdict  of  the  conscience  upon  a  form  of  religion 
beyond  which  it  has  passed?  Thus  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  Jesus 
liberated  his  disciples'  consciences  equally  with  his  own.  The  Apostle 
Paul  was  true  to  his  spirit  when  he  brought  out  the  distinction  and 
showed  the  radical  opposition  between  the  Law  and  the  Gospel.  Christ 
did  not  bring  in  new  mysteries,  new  precepts ;  he  created  a  new  state  of 
soul.  His  revelation  is  not  superimposed  upon  the  conscience,  like  that 
of  Moses ;  it  is  realised  in  the  conscience  itself ;  it  is  the  conscience  raised 
to  a  higher  power  of  clear  sight  and  energy. 

Whether  it  would  or  no  the  Church  was  forced  to  walk  in  the  way 
he  opened,  and  break  with  the  letter  of  the  Old  Testament,  under  penalty 
of  being  unfaithful  to  the  spirit  of  the  New.  In  vain  did  it  fall  back 
upon  allegory,  typology,  all  the  subtleties  of  scholasticism  to  veil  the 
rupture  and  preserve  intact  the  authority  of  the  antiquated  letter. 
Those  only  deceive  themselves  who  still  believe  that  such  expedients  sup- 
port the  infallibility  of  Scripture.  What,  indeed,  is  this  avowed  neces- 
sity of  allegorically  interpreting  the  text,  if  not  the  tacit  admission  that 
the  text  in  its  true  and  historic  sense  has  become  foreign  or  hostile  to 
the  Christian  consciousness? 

m 

The  Person  of  Jesus  Christ;  Its  Authority 

THEKE  are  those  who  will  say,  we  admit,  that  the  Old  Testament  revela- 
tion, being  preparatory,  cannot  be  of  absolute  authority  for  Christians ; 
but  does  not  some  such  authority  logically  inhere  in  the  revelation 
brought  by  Jesus  Christ  himself  and  by  him  declared  to  be  definitive  and 
perfect?  Unless  indeed  his  revelation  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  exclude 
for  itself,  as  it  abrogates  for  all  others,  all  external  authority. 

It  is  certain  that  Jesus  sovereignly  conquers  hearts.      When  by 
1Matt.  xii.  1-12;  Mark  u.  27,  iii.  2-4;  Luke  vi.  9;  Mark  vii.  9-13;  Matt.  xv.  10-20. 


THE    PERSON    OF   JESUS    CHRIST  293 

whatever  means,  a  word  or  an  act  of  healing,  men  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
treasure  of  life  which  he  bears  in  himself,  the  most  simple  or  the  most 
learned,  Rabbi  Nicodemus  or  the  Canaanite  woman,  is  joined  to  him  in 
a  bond  of  love  and  confidence  which  nothing  can  break.  This  influence 
of  the  person  of  Jesus  continues  to  be  exerted  by  the  intermediary  of  his 
discourses,  and  especially  of  his  death  upon  the  cross;  he  conquers  us 
by  his  spirit  and  at  once  becomes  our  Master,  the  freely  elected  Master 
of  our  souls.  This  is  the  primary  meaning,  the  moral  and  religious 
meaning,  of  the  word  xvpios,  Lord.  What  is  the  nature  of  this  sov- 
ereignty? In  what  sense  is  the  person  of  Christ  the  object  of  the  faith 
and  love  of  Christians? 

The  personal  authority  of  Christ  does  not  in  the  least  degree  coin- 
cide, nor  can  it  be  identified,  with  that  of  his  discourses,  considered  ab- 
stractly as  the  expression  of  a  doctrine;  still  less  with  the  traditional 
historic  form  in  which  they  have  been  preserved.  His  authority  is  not 
that  of  any  letter  whatsoever ;  it  arises  from  the  outshining  of  the  inner 
consciousness  of  Jesus,  a  radiation  of  holiness,  of  love,  of  the  presence 
of  God  within  him.  The  mysterious  power  which  in  his  consciousness 
and  by  his  word  subjugates  our  souls  and  makes  them  his  is  the  authority 
of  God  himself,  it  is  the  spirit  of  truth,  of  love,  and  of  holiness.  In  this 
sense  it  must  be  said  that  so  soon  as  this  authority  reveals  itself  to  us 
we  also  feel  it  to  be  sovereign  and  absolute.  This  consciousness  of  Jesus 
realises  and  includes  for  us  the  spiritual  and  moral  bond  between  the 
human  soul  and  God,  their  absolute  union,  so  that  when  this  consciousness 
becomes  ours  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  in  the  perfect  religion,  in  normal 
and  eternal  relations  with  God.  This  is  why  we  cannot  separate  our- 
selves from  this  consciousness  of  Christ,  which  is  the  essence  and  the 
religious  dignity  of  his  person.  In  the  last  analysis,  and  to  go  down 
to  the  very  root  of  the  Christian  religion,  to  be  a  Christian  is  not  to 
acquire  a  notion  of  God,  or  even  an  abstract  doctrine  of  his  paternal 
love;  it  is  to  live  over,  within  ourselves,  the  inner,  spiritual  life  of 
Christ,  and  by  the  union  of  our  heart  with  his  to  feel  in  ourselves  the 


294  THE   PERSON    OF   JESUS    CHRIST 

presence  of  a  Father  and  the  reality  of  our  filial  relation  to  him,  just  as 
Christ  felt  in  himself  the  Father's  presence  and  his  filial  relation  to 
him.  It  is  not  a  question  of  a  new  teaching,  but  of  a  transformed  con- 
sciousness. Christ  is  far  more  than  the  highest  authority  in  Christian- 
ity; he  is  Christianity  itself. 

The  true  and  ultimate  object  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  is  therefore 
not  the  man  Jesus,  but  the  revelation  of  the  Father  which  is  in  him. 
Jesusolatry,  that  is,  the  separate  worship  of  the  man  Jesus,  is,  so  far 
as  the  Christian  religion  is  concerned,  as  truly  an  idolatry  as  the  adora- 
tion of  the  Virgin  and  the  saints.  It  is  as  repugnant  to  Protestant 
piety  in  its  deep  instinctive  tendency  as  to  the  primitive  gospel  Jesus 
never  claimed  worship  for  himself. 

To  maintain  in  all  its  plenitude  the  authority  o*f  Christ  it  is  there- 
fore important  not  to  displace  its  seat,  its  true  centre.  It  is  sovereign 
and  absolute,  as  that  of  God  himself,  in  the  domain  of  the  religious 
experience  to  which  by  its  own  action  it  gives  rise  in  us.  This  experience 
is  threefold:  the  experience  of  our  deliverance  from  evil,  of  our  filial 
union  with  the  Father,  and  of  our  entrance  into  eternal  life.  All  these 
were  in  the  consciousness  of  Christ,  and  by  our  spiritual  communion  with 
him  they  pass  into  our  own  as  an  actual,  living  reality.  But  to  extend 
the  authority  of  Christ  beyond  this  domain  to  things  of  another  order 
and  unrelated  to  it,  to  the  body  of  general  and  traditional  notions  in 
which  his  mind  was  trained  and  which  he  shared  with  all  his  contempo- 
raries, notions  cosmographical,  historical,  and  literary,  demonology, 
possession,  apocalyptic  hopes, — this  is  to  pervert  the  gospel,  to  put  it 
into  conflict  with  science  and  with  criticism,  to  impute  to  Jesus  purposes 
and  pretensions  which  he  never  claimed, — in  a  word,  to  destroy  his 
authority  under  the  pretext  of  making  it  absolute.  The  religious  and 
moral  content  of  his  consciousness  may  be  recognised  by  this  test :  that 
it  is  perfectly  assimilable  by  our  own.  The  authority  of  Christ  over  us 
is  perfect  in  the  precise  degree  in  which  this  assimilation  has  taken  place. 
And  thus,  having  first  been  a  historic  fact,  it  becomes  an  inward  spir- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  295 

itual  and  moral  power,  acting  upon  the  conscience  as  the  ideal  acts,  and 
thus  universally  felt  to  be  of  imperative  obligation  and  invincible 
attraction. 

For  himself,  therefore,  no  less  than  for  his  disciples,  Jesus  repudiated 
all  claim  to  external  authority,  and  in  return  external  authority,  acting 
through  tradition  and  the  Jewish  hierarchy,  condemned  him.  For  him 
that  notion  of  an  infallible  outward  authority,  on  which  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees  founded  their  religious  system,  simply  did  not  exist.  His 
gospel  fundamentally  disallowed  it.  In  fact,  where  is  the  usefulness 
of  oracular  authority,  when  the  question  is  not  of  imposing  a  belief  or 
a  line  of  conduct  as  necessary  to  salvation,  but  of  relating  salvation  to 
the  moral  acts  of  trust,  repentance,  consecration  to  God?  An  entirely 
different  sort  of  authority  is  needed  in  this  case,  the  authority  of  holiness 
and  love.  With  this  authority  Jesus  was  endowed,  and  he  wills  that 
his  disciples  shall  also  be  clothed  in  it.  This  is  not  the  authority  of  the 
letter,  but  of  the  Spirit.  Paul  meant  nothing  else  when,  comparing  the 
two  Covenants  and  the  kind  of  authority  exercised  by  each,  he  wrote: 
"  The  Lord  is  the  Spirit.  And  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there 
is  liberty."  x 

IV 

The  Nature  of  the  Gospel 

No  one  denies  that  the  personal  religion  of  Christ  was  all  of  inspiration 
without  exterior  yoke;  but  it  is  added  that  such  a  religion  can  never 
be  that  of  sinful  men.  The  estate  of  sin  into  which  they  have  fallen 
renders  indispensable  the  discipline  of  a  divinely  ordered  institution  or 
code.  Such  an  argument  is  fundamentally  irrational.  I  do  not  deny 
that  those  external  authorities  which  in  the  older  religions  oppressed  the 
human  conscience  had  their  first  cause  in  man's  sinful  state.  But  what 
is  the  gospel,  and  what  is  its  purpose,  if  not  to  bring  about  the  blotting 

1  2  Cor.  iii.  17.    Bengel,  "  Conversio  fit  ad  Dominum  ut  Spiritum  "  (The  authority 
of  the  Lord  is  that  of  the  Spirit  himself). 


296  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

out  of  sin  and  the  redemption  of  the  sinner?  How  then  can  it  find  room 
and  sanction  for  the  authorities  of  former  religions,  when  it  does  away 
with  the  very  reason  for  their  existence?  Let  us  rather  admit  that 
the  gospel  is  in  itself  the  destruction  of  all  servitudes,  as  well  of  legal 
and  sacerdotal  servitudes  as  of  servitude  of  sin.  When  one  is  abolished 
all  the  others  fall,  as  a  matter  of  necessity.  Paul  admirably  sets  this 
forth  in  his  figure  of  the  prison  in  which  sinful  men  are  shut  up,  and  of 
the  j  ailer  who  keeps  them  in  ward.  When  the  prison  is  opened  the  func- 
tions of  the  jailer  cease. 

We  must  here  anticipate  the  misapprehension  by  which  certain  mys- 
tical anarchists  x  have  drawn  the  conclusion  that  every  social  organisa- 
tion and  hierarchy  has  been  abolished.  There  is  no  incompatibility 
between  the  nature  of  Christ's  gospel  and  the  existence  of  human  insti- 
tutions of  relative  value,  justified  and  limited  by  the  very  services  they 
render,  such  as  the  authority  of  the  father,  and  of  teachers  of  various 
degrees,  in  the  upbringing  of  children,  or  such  as  that  of  apostles  and 
evangelists  who  preach  Christ's  word,  or  of  ecclesiastical  and  civil 
authorities  regularly  constituted  with  a  view  to  the  maintenance  of  order 
in  the  Church  or  the  State.  All  these  organisations  are  founded  upon 
the  duty  of  the  strong  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  weak.  But  such  are 
purely  auxiliary  forces.  They  become  contrary  to  the  gospel  when, 
being  human,  they  take  upon  themselves  divine  attributes  and  by  virtue 
of  these  attributes  substitute  themselves  for  the  authority  of  God,  and 
assume  to  be  mediators  between  God  and  the  human  soul;  whether 
a  sacerdotal  institution  claiming  to  be  divine,  or  a  human  letter  giving 
itself  out  as  the  objective  word  of  God.  Mediations  of  such  a  kind  be- 
come in  fact  obstacles  and  barriers  which  interrupt  the  direct  communion 
between  the  Father  and  his  child.  What  else  than  idols  are  human  insti- 
tutions, whether  Church  or  book,  when  thus  held  to  be  divine?  8 

The  essential  characteristic  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  that  by  which  it 
marks  a  new  epoch  in  the  religious  and  moral  development  of  humanity, 
1  Tolstoy,  for  example.  2 1  Cor.  iii.  21-23. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  297 

is  that  it  has  made  things  that  were  formerly  essential  and  of  principal 
importance — priesthood,  rite,  exterior  law — to  be  accessories ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  has  raised  those  which  were  formerly  derived  and  subordinate 
— heart  piety  and  relations  with  God — to  be  things  of  final  and  capital 
importance,  the  very  essence  of  religion.  Thus  the  religious  world  has 
been  reversed;  all  its  relations  have  been  inverted  because  its  centre  of 
gravity  has  been  displaced.  Never  in  all  human  history  was  there  a 
more  radical  revolution  and  change. 

In  the  consciousness  of  Christ  the  relation  of  man  with  God,  the 
very  principle  of  religion, — piety, — was  determined  entirely  anew.  There 
was  nothing  exterior  in  the  bond  between  his  consciousness  and  God. 
Wholly  interior  and  moral,  it  was  born  of  a  profound  sense  of  unity 
and  love,  like  that  which  links  the  father  and  the  child.  The  God  who 
is  in  heaven  revealed  himself  in  the  heart  of  Jesus  as  his  Father;  Jesus 
felt  himself  to  be  living  in  God  as  his  Son.  And  we  find  in  almost  every 
word  he  uttered  the  proof  that  he  proposed  to  create  the  same  filial 
relation  between  his  disciples  and  God,  that  this  should  be  the  distinctive 
mark  and  essential  content  of  that  piety  with  which  he  bent  every  effort 
to  inspire  them. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  Jesus  introduced  a  new  doctrine  of  God, 
his  essence  and  attributes,  and  of  the  intra-divine  life.  His  notion  of 
God  is  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  Even  the  idea  of  God  as  the  Father 
is  not  new.  The  new  thing  here  is  the  inward  attitude.  In  the  con- 
sciousness of  Christ  the  God  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  reveals  himself 
as  in  a  new  relation  to  human  consciousness.  This  new  relation,  ex- 
pressed by  the  word  Father,  is  the  principle  and  essence  of  the  gospel 
revelation,  which  it  would  be  better  to  call  a  creation.  This  is  why  on 
the  lips  of  Jesus  the  word  Father,  already  known,  becomes  the  proper 
name  of  God.  Jesus  never  invokes  God  by  any  other  name :  "  Father, 
my  Father."  l  But  in  this  intimate  and  familiar  association  there  is  not 
a  shadow  of  metaphysical  monopoly  or  exclusive  religious  egotism. 
1  Mark  xiv.  36;  Matt.  x.  32,  xL  27,  xviii.  19,  35,  etc. 


298  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

When  he  revealed  himself  to  Jesus  as  Father,  God  revealed  himself  as  such 
to  men  in  general.  The  love  of  the  Father  is  bestowed  upon  all  his 
children  without  a  single  exception,  and  if  there  is  any  preference  it  is  in 
favour  of  the  most  insignificant,  the  poorest,  the  most  fallen,  the  most 
orphaned.1  Paternal  love  thus  becomes  the  highest  characteristic  of  the 
relations  of  God  with  men.  So  Christ  teaches  his  disciples  to  pray  as  he 
does,  to  put  themselves  into  the  same  filial  relation  with  God,  saying  to 
him,  "  Our  Father."  So,  too,  in  speaking  to  his  disciples  of  God  he 
more  often  says  "  your  Father,"  or  "  our  Father  "  than  "  my  Father." 
They  too  must  become  the  "  children  of  the  Father."  And  they  will 
become  such  by  learning  to  love  as  he  does,  without  condition  or  reserve.2 
To  the  Apostle  Paul  the  Christian's  distinctive  and  specific  invocation 
was  "  Abba !  Father !  "  which  was  that  of  Christ.3  L\  short,  the  perfect 
revelation  is  in  the  perfection  of  piety.  We  are  Christians  just  so  far 
as  the  personal  piety  of  Jesus,  the  sense  of  divine  sonship,  is  reproduced 
in  us. 

In  this  sort  of  piety  is  there  any  place  for  the  duty  of  submission  to 
the  injunctions  of  any  exterior  authority  soever? 

What  guide,  what  support,  what  strength  did  Jesus  give  to  his 
disciples?  Not  one  other  than  the  Spirit  of  his  Father,  which  abode  in 
him  and  would  abide  in  them.  He  promised  it  without  a  single  exception 
to  all  who  would  ask  the  Father  for  it.  He  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Father, 
and  consequently  a  spirit  of  love,  of  holiness,  of  self-renunciation,  of 
devotion  to  others.  He  should  be  the  soul  of  their  soul,  the  principle 
of  their  conduct,  their  guide  and  counsellor  on  their  way  through  an 
inimical  world.  On  solemn  occasions  he  will  suggest  to  them  what  they 
ought  to  say.  He  is  the  best  gift  which  the  Father  can  give  to  his  chil- 
dren, a  better  bread  than  that  which  we  give  to  our  own.  He  is  the 
permanent  inward  bond  which  unites  the  children  to  the  Father  and 
to  one  another,  so  forming  an  eternal  family.* 

1  Matt  v.  45-48,  vi.  1-8,  x.  29,  xxiii.  9;  Mark  xi.  25,  etc.  *  Matt.  T.  9,  45. 

3  Rom.  viii.  14-17;  Gal.  iv.  1-7,  iv.  21-v.  1 ;  John  viii.  35,  etc. 

4  Luke  xi.  13;  Matt.  vii.  7-11,  x.  20;  Luke  xxiv.  49;  John  xiv.  26,  xv.  26,  etc. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  299 

Jesus  Christ  promised  his  disciples  the  help  and  guidance  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  in  all  circumstances,  for  all  their  needs,  and  in  all  that 
they  should  have  to  do  or  to  suffer,  but  in  no  sense  to  constitute  a  new 
Scriptural  code  to  which  Christians  would  thenceforth  be  forever  en- 
slaved. How,  then,  came  it  to  pass  that  the  Church  learned  to  distrust 
the  Master's  promise,  and  hastened  to  build  up  again  that  which  he 
destroyed — the  absolute  authority  of  the  so-called  divine  letter? 

The  Church  was  incredulous,  and  it  still  is  so  as  regards  the  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  She  has  limited  inspiration  to  bishops,  the  hier- 
archy, the  Pope,  or  else  to  the  authors  whose  writings  are  collected  be- 
tween the  covers  of  the  New  Testament,  and  has  denied  it  to  ordinary 
Christians ;  and  for  them  she  has  created  a  new  authority,  thus  depriving 
them  of  the  liberty  which  Christ  conquered  for  every  son  of  the  Father. 

The  dogma  which  made  the  Holy  Spirit  a  metaphysical  entity 
paralysed  and  killed  his  dynamic  influence  in  the  Christian  life.  In  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  the  Spirit  represented  the  divine  principle 
in  the  human  soul,  the  immanent  influence  of  the  living  God.  Elevated 
into  the  empyrean  of  the  Trinity  it  has  become  transcendent,  not  less 
apart  from  the  world  than  the  two  other  divine  persons,  and  thus  it  too 
has  need  of  a  mediating  organ  by  which  to  be  revealed  and  made  active ; 
it  has  become  incarnate  and  therefore  localised  either  in  the  Catholic 
hierarchy  or  in  the  code  of  Scripture.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from 
the  thought  or  the  promise  of  Jesus. 

At  the  same  time  those  Christians  who  claimed  to  be  directly  guided 
by  the  Spirit  came  to  be  held  in  suspicion.  There  was  a  disquieting 
mysticism  about  them.  The  Spirit  could  be  permitted  to  act  or  to  mani- 
fest himself  only  in  legal  and  official  ways.  Having  become  a  transcend- 
ent force,  he  appeared  to  be  an  undetermined  principle.  Those  who 
invoked  him  as  a  shield  for  fanaticism  were  victims  of  delusion  or  at  best 
they  identified  him  with  their  own  imaginings.  The  teaching  of  the 
Gospels  is  absolutely  the  contrary.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a 
power  historically  more  clearly  defined  than  the  Spirit  which  Jesus  prom- 


300  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

ised  to  his  disciples.  It  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Father,  which  was  in  himself, 
manifesting  itself  as  a  spirit  of  truth,  of  moral  sincerity,  of  perfect 
justice  and  unreserved  love  for  fellow  men.  To  two  of  his  disciples  who 
desired  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  upon  a  village  which  was  unwilling 
to  receive  their  Master,  Jesus  declared  that  they  did  not  know  the  manner 
of  spirit  which  animated  them.  To  the  Pharisees  who  confused  his  spirit 
with  that  of  Beelzebub  he  spoke  of  an  unpardonable  sin  against  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  Fourth  Gospel,  embodying  the  idea  if  not  the  words  of 
his  teaching,  declares  that  the  Spirit  which  the  disciples  of  Jesus  were 
to  receive  would  be  his  Spirit,  another  himself,  that  is,  the  inspiration  of 
all  his  words  and  of  his  whole  life.  By  this  Spirit  Christ  is  forever 
present  with  his  followers.1 

Those  who  claim  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Spirit  may  judge 
of  the  Christian  character  of  their  inspiration  by  its  conformity  with 
that  of  Christ.  The  true  children  of  the  Father  are  those  who  are  led 
by  the  very  Spirit  of  him  in  whom  the  Father  is  revealed.  Thus  there 
is  nothing  more  specifically  determined  than  that  which  is  called  the 
Spirit  of  God,  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ.  Far  from  separating  from 
Christ  those  who  are  truly  imbued  with  and  animated  by  it,  far  from 
giving  them  over  to  all  sorts  of  chimeras,  the  Spirit  forever  attracts 
us  to  Christ,  makes  him  live  again  in  each  Christian,  rescues  him  from 
all  that  is  imperfect  and  contingent  in  history,  and  makes  him  eternally 
present  in  consciousness. 

The  Spirit  of  Christ  gives  us  to  recognise  the  words  of  Christ  as 
words  of  religious  and  moral  truth,  and  therefore  obligatory,  and  in 
their  turn  his  words  enable  us  to  distinguish  the  true  inspiration  of 
Christ  in  all  the  successive  and  various  religious  manifestations  that  call 
themselves  by  his  name.  This  is  not  a  vicious  circle;  it  is  the  circle  of 
life,  in  which  the  religious  consciousness  awakes  and  is  developed. 

Christ  was  not  only  the  prophet  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit,  he 
introduced  it  into  the  world  and  forever  remains  its  Master. 
1  John  xiv.  16-20,  xv.  26,  xvi.  13-15. 


CHAPTER   HI 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  THE  CHARTEE  OF  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

I 

The  Fulfilment  of  the  Messianic  Promise 

IN  his  noblest  page  Jeremiah  thus  prophesied  :  "  The  Word  of  Jehovah  : 
behold  the  days  come  that  I  will  make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of 
Israel  and  with  the  house  of  Judah  ;  not  according  to  the  covenant  that 
I  made  with  their  fathers  in  the  day  that  I  took  them  by  the  hand  to 
bring  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  which  my  covenant  they  broke, 
although  I  was  a  husband  to  them,  saith  Jehovah.  But  this  is  the  cov- 
enant that  I  will  make  with  the  house  of  Israel  after  those  days,  saith 
Jehovah  ;  I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts  and  in  their  heart  will 
I  write  it,  and  I  will  be  their  God  and  they  shall  be  my  people."  l  It 
would  be  impossible  more  accurately  to  characterise  the  new  covenant 
forever  established  between  God  and  man  in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  divine  law  transferred  from  Sinai's  tables  of  stone  to  tables 
of  the  heart,  put  into  organic  relations  with  the  human  conscience,  so 
incorporating  itself  with  it  as  henceforth  to  be  identical  with  it;  the 
heteronomy  of  the  former  time  becoming  autonomy,  the  moral  ideal  ceas- 
ing to  be  a  commandment  of  despair  and  menace  ;  the  holiness  of  Jehovah 
reappearing  in  more  august  form  as  the  love  of  the  heavenly  Father; 
the  child's  faith  and  trust  becoming  an  inward  light,  an  inward  power, 
which  renews  the  soul  from  within,  exalting  its  energies  and  sanctifying 
the  whole  of  life  —  this  is  the  new  gospel,  the  religion  of  the  Spirit. 

This  is  the  character  and  this  the  aspect  in  which  apostolic  Chris- 
tianity is  shown  in  the  New  Testament,  from  its  first  page  to  its  last.* 

1  Jer.  xxxi.  31-33. 

*The  very  expression,  "New  Testament,  new  covenant,"      iceuH)    Siaffi)^.   is  taken 


from  the  passage  in  Jeremiah  which  is  especially  considered  by  Paul,  2  Cor.  iii.  6. 

901 


302  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  PROMISE 
The  Christian  life  is  there  represented,  not  as  obedience  and  submission 
to  an  external  authority,  but  as  the  product  of  an  inspiration,  as  the 
very  creation  of  the  Spirit  of  God  or  of  Christ  shed  abroad  in  the  hearts 
of  believers.1  Thenceforth  they  have  in  themselves  the  motive  force  and 
the  rule  of  their  thought  and  life. 

We  need  be  neither  disconcerted  nor  distressed  by  the  fantastic  and 
sometimes  morbid  forms  which  Christianity  took  on  in  the  early  days 
of  fervent  enthusiasm.  Uneducated  and  without  the  critical  sense,  the 
early  Christians  often  prized  the  manifestations  of  the  Spirit  in  pro- 
portion to  their  singularity.  But  among  the  charisms  or  gifts  of  the 
Spirit  the  Apostle  Paul  placed  that  which  he  called  the  gift  of  the  dis- 
cernment of  the  relative  value  of  special  inspirations,  and  while  he  coun- 
selled the  Thessalonian  Christians  to  "  quench  not  the  Spirit,"  he  failed 
not  to  offer  a  judicious  and  profound  criticism  of  those  charisms  which 
were  most  alluring  and  most  pleasing  to  the  popular  taste ;  he  established 
a  strict  gradation  among  these  sometimes  tumultuous  manifestations, 
from  the  gift  of  tongues,  which  he  put  in  the  lowest  rank,  up  to  faith, 
hope,  and  that  divine  gift  which  he  ranked  above  all  the  others,  dis- 
interested, patient,  devoted  love,  without  which  all  the  rest  is  nothing. 
He  always  traces  inspiration  back  to  the  normal  imitation  of  Christ  as 
its  essential  and  regulating  principle.  They  who  are  not  animated  by 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  are  none  of  his.2 

Thus  the  New  Testament  attests  the  universality  of  the  gift  of  the 
Spirit,  and  maintains  the  privilege  of  all  Christians,  at  all  times  and 
without  exception,  to  share  in  it.  By  this  fact  it  becomes  the  inalienable 
warrant  of  the  spirituality  of  the  gospel,  and  merits  the  name  we  give 
it,  the  charter  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  worth  while  to  make 
this  clearly  evident. 

The  Book  of  Acts  records  the  earliest  fulfilment  of  the  Messianic 
promise.  In  the  effusion  of  the  Spirit  upon  the  entire  community  of 

'John  iii.  5-8;  Rom.  viii.  14,  etc. 

*1  Cor.  xii.  10:  Sidxptvis  irvevfji&Tov.    1  Thess.  V.  19,  2Q:rt>irvfv/jM  n))ffl3fvi>OTC,  irpoQiiTflat 
pll  ttovOcveiTc,  w&vra.  S*  Soxt/tdfere.     Rom.  viii.  9;  1  Cor.  xii.,  xiii.,  xiv.    Of.  1  John  iv.  1. 


FULFILMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  PROMISE        303 

the  disciples  assembled  at  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  Luke  recog- 
nised the  distinctive  token  of  the  new  time.  No  doubt  the  memory  of  the 
event  had  become  blurred  in  the  somewhat  late  tradition  recovered  by 
Luke.  It  is  indeed  an  unintelligent  misapprehension  by  which  he 
changes  the  mystical  and  psychical  phenomenon  of  glossolalia  (flow  of 
incoherent  and  often  unintelligible  words)  which  Paul  well  describes  and 
judges  in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians,  into  a  miraculous  gift  of 
speaking  foreign  languages.  Yet  the  historic  reality  shines  through 

the  mists  of  legend.     The  mere  fact  that  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem 
i 

who  witnessed  these  extraordinary  ebullitions  of  the  disciples  took  them 
for  drunken  men  proves  that  the  phenomenon  was  of  the  same  nature  as 
that  which  took  place  in  Corinth  twenty  years  later,  when  the  "  glos- 
solalists  "  were  believed  to  be  insane.  Notwithstanding  which,  Luke's 
narrative  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  that  this  was  a  Messianic  miracle, 
the  miracle  of  inspiration  bestowed  at  a  given  moment  upon  the  whole 
body  of  this  first  Christian  assembly. 

Such  is  the  meaning  of  Peter's  discourse.  He  begins  by  setting 
aside  the  accusation  of  drunkenness  with  the  remark  that  it  was  still 
early  in  the  day.  But  he  might  quite  as  well  have  accepted  it  in  a 
favourable  sense,  and  made  use  of  it  as  a  speaking  image.  Yes,  these 
men  were  intoxicated — with  enthusiasm,  with  faith,  hope,  joy.  The 
sweet  wine  of  the  new  vintage  had  suddenly  gone  to  their  heads.  They 
had  lost  their  present  timidity,  and  with  it,  temporarily,  the  equilibrium 
of  their  mental  faculties;  they  had  become  prophets,  nabis,  in  the  an- 
cient sense  of  the  word.  Each,  according  to  his  gifts  and  the  relation 
of  his  feelings  to  his  physical  force,  was  expressing  by  shout  and  ges- 
ture, by  song  and  broken  quotations  of  Scripture,  perhaps  by  dance 
and  other  postures,  and  celebrating  as  best  he  could  the  "  wonderful 
works  "  of  God. 

Peter  explains  these  prodigies  by  recalling  the  Messianic  prophecy 
of  Joel :  "  And  it  shall  be  in  the  last  days,  saith  God,  I  will  pour  forth 
of  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh;  and  your  sons  and  your  daughters  shall 


304  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  PROMISE 
prophesy."  Thus  the  difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  covenants 
is  strongly  marked,  the  difference  between  the  age  of  the  Law  and  that 
of  the  Messiah.  The  advent  of  the  latter  was  announced  by  a  general 
outpouring  of  the  Spirit.  The  new  nation  was  to  be  a  nation  of 
prophets.  That  which  had  been  the  privilege  of  a  few  has  become  the 
right  of  all.  This  is  the  universal  inspiration  of  Christians.1 

Another  passage  in  the  Book  of  Acts  shows  still  more  clearly  that 
men  become  true  and  complete  Christians  only  by  experiencing  the  gift 
of  the  Spirit.  There  were  at  Ephesus  certain  disciples  who  had  never 
heard  of  such  a  gift,  nor  even  of  the  fact  of  the  Spirit ;  they  had  received 
only  the  baptism  of  John.  Paul  baptised  them  into  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  and  immediately  the  Spirit  fell  upon  them  with  all  the 
extraordinary  signs  of  his  presence.2 

A  third  incident  of  this  first  period  of  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church  is  no  less  significant.  Philip  had  evangelised  Samaria  with 
extraordinary  success.  Men  and  women  had  come  to  him  for  baptism. 
But,  says  the  narrator,  the  Holy  Spirit  had  not  yet  fallen  upon  them. 
The  apostles  in  Jerusalem  did  not  consider  such  a  conversion  as  com- 
plete, even  when  it  had  been  accompanied  by  baptism  with  water  into 
the  name  of  Jesus.  That  it  might  become  so,  they  dispatched  thither 
Peter  and  John,  who  prayed  for  these  converts  and  laid  their  hands  upon 
them,  whereupon  they  received  the  Spirit.3 

Precisely  the  opposite  took  place  with  Cornelius,  the  pious  cen- 
turion. During  the  preaching  of  Peter,  and  under  the  influence  of  his 
words,  the  Spirit  fell  upon  all  his  hearers,  who  began  to  speak  in  tongues 
and  glorify  God  as  the  first  disciples  had  done  on  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
And  Peter  cried,  "  Can  any  man  forbid  the  water,  that  these  should  not 
be  baptised  who  have  received  the  Holy  Spirit  as  well  as  we  ?  " 

Is  not  this  the  place  for  recalling  to  mind  the  contrast  which  John 
the  Baptist  himself  established  between  his  baptism  and  the  Messianic 
baptism  of  the  new  era:  "  I  baptise  you  in  water  .  .  .  but  the  one 

1  Acts  ii.  1-20.  »/&.,  xix.  1-7.  *Acts  viii.  12-17.          476.,  x.  44-48. 


THE  PAULINIAN  NOTION  OF  INSPIRATION          306 

that  cometh  after  me  is  mightier  than  I;  he  shall  baptise  you  with  the 
Spirit  and  with  fire."  *  The  Spirit  symbolised  by  fire  is  the  power 
which  is  to  renew  the  hearts  of  men. 

The  Church  and  theology  have  singularly  fallen  from  this  high 
position.  Having  reduced  inspiration  to  the  theory  of  intellectual  in- 
fallibility, they  have  separated  it  from  the  Christian  life,  and  have  for- 
gotten that  the  gift  of  the  regenerating  and  enlightening  Spirit  is 
organically  connected  with  the  living  faith  of  all  Christians.  Thus  they 
have  opened  a  chasm  between  the  apostles,  considered  as  endowed  with 
an  absolute  and  exceptional  privilege,  and  all  other  believers,  whom  they 
thus  deprive  of  that  which  Jesus  and  his  disciples  showed  to  be  the  char- 
acteristic of  the  new  covenant,  and  thus  relegate  to  the  yoke  of  author- 
ity, as  under  the  old  covenant.  In  the  beginning  all  the  believers  felt 
themselves  to  be  inspired.  It  was  the  sign  of  their  emancipation  and 
their  guaranty  of  liberty  as  children  of  God.  Christendom  must  get 
back  to  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  if  it  is  not  to  lose  its  title  of  nobility 
and  the  image  of  its  first  ideal. 

n 

The  Paulvnian  Notion  of  Inspiration 

IN  the  early  days  Christian  inspiration  gushed  forth  tumultuous  and 
disturbing;  it  became  clarified  in  Paul's  Epistles.  The  apostle  worked 
out  a  new  and  profound  theory  of  the  fact;  he  brought  to  light  its 
essentially  ethical  principle,  to  which  he  clearly  and  vigorously  subor- 
dinated all  those  external,  marvellous,  often  morbid  and  dangerous  forms 
which  it  might  assume. 

The  idea  of  the  Spirit  is  more  than  an  important  element  in  Paul's 
theology;  it  is  the  soul  of  the  doctrine,  the  binding  principle  which 
makes  all  its  parts  coherent,  from  the  idea  of  God  who  is  Spirit,  and 
Christ  who  is  the  Spirit  manifested  and  active  in  the  world,  to  that 
regeneration  which  is  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit,  and  eternal  life  which  is  the 

1Matt.  iii.  11. 


306          THE  PAULINIAN  NOTION  OF  INSPIRATION 

life  of  the  Spirit.1  Or  to  express  it  in  other  terms,  it  is  a  higher  form 
of  being,  a  specific  category  of  thought,  fixing  the  point  of  view  from 
which  the  apostle  carries  on  all  his  meditations  and  reasonings,  co-ordi- 
nates and  logically  develops  his  entire  conception  of  Christianity.  The 
dominant  feature  of  his  dogmatic  is  to  think  or  to  know  "  according 
to  the  Spirit"  (mra  Trvefyia);  his  entire  morality  is  to  walk  "in  the 
Spirit " ;  and  the  whole  forms  a  theology  of  the  Spirit,  a  cro</>ta  irvcvfWTiK-rj, 
which  in  his  eyes  is  "  the  perfect  wisdom."  2 

What  then  is  the  Spirit  in  the  thought  of  Paul?  It  is  with  him 
a  hereditary  notion ;  he  received  it  from  the  Old  Testament,  and  though 
he  developed  it,  he  did  so  in  strict  fidelity  to  the  Old  Testament.  To 
the  prophets  the  Spirit  represented  the  activity  and  power  of  God  in  the 
world  and  in  the  human  heart ;  it  was  God  himself  giving  life,  revealing 
himself,  acting,  directing,  profoundly  influencing  all  his  creatures.  In 
short,  if  God,  in  himself  considered,  is  the  divine  being  in  power,  apart 
from  all  manifestation  of  himself,  the  Spirit  of  God  is  God  in  act, 
God  manifested.  Thus  for  the  Apostle  Paul  the  Spirit  is  the  divine 
energy  (8wa/«s)  which,  especially  in  the  religious  order,  is  light  and 
life.  The  Spirit  which  acted  intermittently  upon  the  prophets  is  in 
some  way  individualised  in  the  person  of  Christ,  so  that  the  apostle  could 
say  "  The  Lord  is  the  Spirit,"  and  that  to  receive  Christ  and  be  united 
to  him  by  faith  is  at  the  same  time  to  receive  the  Spirit  as  the  immanent 
principle  of  a  new  life.3 

The  organic  connection  between  faith  and  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 
must  be  before  all  else  emphasised.  One  can  no  more  exist  without  the 
other  than  form  can  exist  without  substance,  or  cause  without  effect. 
It  may  even  be  said  that  in  the  initial  phenomenon  of  conversion  there 
is  but  a  single  and  identical  psychological  process,  which  on  the  side  of 
man  is  an  act  of  faith,  on  the  side  of  God  the  gift  of  the  Spirit.  "  To 

1 1  Cor.  ii.  10-16;  2  Cor.  iii.  6,  17;  Gal.  iii.  3-5,  v.  22-25;  1  Cor.  xii.  1-13;  2  Cor.  i.  22, 
v.  5;  Rom.  viii.  2-11 ;  2  Cor.  iii.  17,  18. 

*2  Cor.  v.  16;  Rom.  viii.  1-11;  Gal.  v.  16;  1  Cor.  xii.  1-11,  ii.  4-13,  etc. 
8  Gal.  iii.  2,  5;  Rom.  v.  5;  Gal.  iii.  14;  Eph.  i.  13. 


THE  PAULINIAN  NOTION  OF  INSPIRATION          307 

believe  in  Christ,"  "  to  be  in  Christ,"  "  the  life  of  Christ  in  us,"  and 
"  to  receive  the  Spirit,"  are  synonymous,  or  at  least  religiously  equiva- 
lent expressions.  A  Christian,  then,  is  a  man  who,  having  believed  the 
gospel,  has  by  that  act  received  into  himself  the  Spirit  of  Christ  as  a 
life  principle,  the  permanent  inspiration  of  his  thoughts  and  acts. 

It  is  not  enough  to  represent  the  Spirit  of  God  as  coming  to  the 
help  of  man's  spirit,  supplying  strength  which  he  lacks,  an  associate  or 
juxtaposed  force,  a  supernatural  auxiliary.  Paul's  thought  has  no 
room  for  such  a  moral  and  psychological  dualism,  although  popular 
language  easily  permits  it.  His  thought  is  quite  otherwise  profound. 
There  is  no  simple  addition  of  divine  power  and  human  power  in  the 
Christian  life.  The  Spirit  of  God  identifies  itself  with  the  human  Me 
into  which  it  enters  and  whose  life  it  becomes.  If  we  may  so  speak, 
it  is  individualised  in  the  new  moral  personality  which  it  creates.  A 
sort  of  metamorphosis,  a  transubstantiation,  if  the  word  may  be  per- 
mitted, takes  place  in  the  human  being.1  Having  been  carnal,  it  has 
become  spiritual.  A  "  new  man "  arises  from  the  old  man  by  the 
creative  act  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Hence  the  strong  antitheses  by  which 
the  Paulinian  ethic  expresses  the  passage  from  the  life  of  the  flesh  to 
that  of  the  Spirit.  Paul  calls  Christians  7rvetv«m/coi,  properly  speak- 
ing, "  the  inspired."  They  are  moved  and  guided  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  The  Spirit  of  God  dwells  in  them  as  an  immanent  virtue,  whose 
fruits  are  as  organically  developed  as  those  of  the  flesh.  Supernatural 
gifts  become  natural,  or  rather,  at  this  mystical  height,  the  antithesis 
created  by  scholastic  rationalism  becomes  meaningless  and  is  oblit- 
erated.2 

This  action  of  the  Spirit,  being  essentially  moral  and  regenerating, 
is  felt  by  all  the  faculties  of  soul  and  body,  by  the  intelligence  as  much 
as  by  the  will.  It  opens  the  understanding  as  well  as  the  heart,  its 
warmth  becomes  also  light.  The  Spirit  reveals  to  the  regenerated  be- 

1  Appendix  LXXXVIII. 

*1  Cor.  ii.  13,  iii.  3;  Rom.  vii.  12-15,  vi.  6;  Eph.  iv.  23,  24;  Col.  iii.  9,  etc. 


308          THE  PAULINIAN  NOTION  OF  INSPIRATION 

liever  such  things  as  the  carnal  man  could  never  have  understood.1  Not 
that  this  new  knowledge  is  miraculously  perfect  and  entire  from  the 
very  beginning.  As  to  this,  the  apostle  positively  affirms  the  con- 
trary. The  Christian's  religious  knowledge  remains  always  partial  and 
progressive.2  There  is  nothing  in  the  illuminating  influence  of  the 
Spirit  at  all  resembling  the  scholastic  miracle  of  theopneusty.  All  is 
organic,  interrelated,  above  all,  moral.  There  is  nothing  in  common 
with  the  mantic  art  of  the  ancients.  Great  thoughts  spring  from  faith 
in  the  same  way  as  all  other  virtues,  sanctification,  missionary  zeal, 
charity.  Inspiration  is  in  the  essence  of  faith.  All  Christians  have 
their  part  in  it ;  it  is  a  sign  by  which  they  are  to  be  recognised.  With- 
out it  one  is  not  a  Christian.  He  who  has  not  received  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  is  none  of  his.  No  one  confesses  the  Lordship  of  Jesus,  except 
by  the  Holy  Spirit.3 

This  state  of  inspiration  as  a  common  and  permanent  privilege,  this 
transference  of  the  principle  and  motive  of  the  religious  life  from  the 
exterior  domain  of  institutions  to  the  conscience,  is  the  vital  point  of 
the  Paulinian  antithesis  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Covenants,  between 
the  religion  of  the  Letter  and  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  The  first  made 
only  trembling  slaves ;  the  second  makes  full-grown  men,  free  men,  and 
"  sons  of  God."4 

Paul  explains  with  peculiar  satisfaction  the  principle  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  enfranchisement  thus  wrought.  Where  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
is,  there  is  liberty.  The  man  of  the  Spirit  ( irvevfjutTLKoi  )  has  a  norm 
of  more  exalted  character  than  other  men,  in  the  Spirit  that  abides 
within  him.  He  judges  all  things  and  is  judged  by  no  man.  Hagar 
the  slave,  symbol  of  the  Mosaic  law,  brought  forth  children  for  servi- 
tude; Sarah  the  wife,  representing  the  evangelical  dispensation,  brings 

1 1  Cor.  ii.  9,  10.    Of.  Matt.  xiii.  11.  'Appendix  l.XXX IX. 

8 1  Cor.  xii.  4-11;  Rom.  viii.  9-14;  1  Cor.  xii.  3,  etc.  The  passage  from  the  old 
religion  to  the  new  was  the  passage  from  the  law  and  the  flesh  to  faith  and  the  Spirit, 
Gal.  iii.  1-5. 

4  Appendix  XC. 


THE  JOHANNEAN  DOCTRINE  OF  INSPIRATION      309 

forth  the  children  of  liberty.  "  Stand  forth,  therefore,  in  the  liberty 
wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free,  and  be  not  entangled  again  with 
the  yoke  of  bondage." 

But  the  Spirit  of  God  or  of  Christ,  which  is  an  inward  principle  of 
liberty,  is  not  a  mere  formal  and  empty  principle.  It  is  not  only 
liberty,  but  love  and  holiness.  It  sanctifies  the  will  and  makes  it  ready 
to  be  sacrificed,  to  devote  self  without  reserve  or  reckoning  to  the  good 
of  others.  Thus  it  fulfils  the  substantial  justice  of  the  moral  law,  for 
love  alone  fulfils  the  law;  the  whole  law  is  summed  up  in  the  precept. 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,"  so  that  the  abolition  of 
the  old  order  is  in  reality  the  accomplishment  of  the  divine  intention  for 
which  it  was  established.2 

Ill 

The  Johcmnean  Doctrine  of  Inspiration 

COMING  fifty  years  later  than  the  Synoptic  writings,  the  Johannean 
conception  of  inspiration  is  still  more  free  from  accidental,  miraculous, 
or  morbid  forms;  but  its  principle  and  purpose  are  the  same — the 
autonomy  of  the  Christian  conscience. 

Paul  said,  "  The  Lord  is  the  Spirit."  Joffli  said,  "  The  Lord  is  the 
Word  made  flesh."  3  The  two  formulas  belong  to  two  entirely  different 
circles  of  ideas;  but  they  are  religiously  equivalent.  The  revelation 
or  communication  of  God  by  the  Word  is  fundamentally  identical  with 
the  revelation  or  communication  of  him  by  the  Spirit.  The  Word  is  life 
and  light;  it  comes  into  the  world  as  the  principle  of  light  and  life. 
Incarnated  in  Jesus,  he  came  unto  his  own,  who  received  him  not,  but 
to  such  as  received  him,  he  gave  the  right  and  the  faculty  to  become 
"  children  of  God,"  because  they  are  born  of  God.4 

In  like  manner  as  the  Spirit  expresses  the  divine,  universal,  and 

1 1  Cor.  ii.  14, 15;  Gal.  iv.  21,  v.  1.  »  Gal.  v.  13,  vi.  10;  Rom.  iii.  81. 

•John  i.  14.  'John  i.  1-12. 


310     THE  JOHANNEAN  DOCTRINE  OF  INSPIRATION 

eternal  basis  of  the  historic  person  of  Jesus,  so  the  substance  of  the 
incarnate  Word  is  light  and  life.  Therefore  both  it  and  the  Spirit 
should  be  and  may  be  assimilated  by  believers,  thus  becoming  the  sub- 
stance of  their  new  personality.  The  incarnate  Logos  is  the  bread  of 
life ;  he  has  come  down  from  heaven ;  he  offers  himself  to  be  eaten  as  the 
divine  food  which  gives  eternal  life  to  the  soul.  This  is  why  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  Jesus  says  and  repeatedly  insists,  in  the  most  paradoxical 
of  symbolisms,  "  my  flesh  is  food,  my  blood  is  drink ;  he  who  eats  my  flesh 
and  drinks  my  blood  has  life  in  himself."  All  this  is  admirably  clear, 
and  at  bottom  perfectly  simple.  The  Logos  or  word  of  God  which  is 
in  Jesus  ought  in  the  same  way  to  become  the  very  nature  of  the  be- 
lievers. He  desires  to  dwell  in  them  in  a  permanent  way,  and  they  ought 
to  dwell  in  him,  that  they  may  walk  in  the  light,  and  have  eternal  life, 
from  the  moment  that  now  is.1 

With  a  wealth  of  more  or  less  transparent  imagery  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  develops  this  central  thesis  of  his  theology.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  action  of  the  Word  thus  understood  must  render  that  of 
the  Spirit  superfluous,  and  it  must  indeed  be  avowed  that  it  is  impossible 
to  differentiate  them  substantially  from  one  another.  John  obeys  the 
same  spiritual  necessity  which  controlled  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  continu- 
ally speaks  concurrently  of  the  work  of  Christ  in  us,  and  of  that  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  which,  however,  are  identical.  It  is  pretty  hard  to  say 
how  our  author  conceived  of  the  relations  between  the  Word  and  the 
Spirit ;  but  it  is  clear  that  the  Spirit  perpetuates  in  the  world  the  Word 
which  was  incarnate  in  the  historic  Christ,  particularly  the  subjective 
action  of  the  Word  in  the  soul,  moving  it  to  faith  and  operating  in  it 
the  birth  from  above.  This  subjective  influence  develops  the  new  life 
in  the  soul,  and  remains  continually  present  in  it  as  the  fountain  of 
revelation,  consolation,  and  comfort,  all  that  is  signified  by  the  untrans- 
latable word  Paraclete.  The  Word  made  man  could  not  always  continue 
in  the  world.  He  brought  to  it  life  and  light,  and  this  innermost  sub- 
stance of  the  Word  was  to  remain  in  the  bosom  of  humanity  after  the 

1  Appendix  XCI. 


THE  JOHANNEAN  DOCTRINE  OF  INSPIRATION      311 

historic  form  under  which  it  had  appeared  had  ceased  to  exist.  From 
having  been  local  and  visible  in  its  first  manifestation,  the  Word  thus 
became  a  universal  principle,  invisible,  interior  to  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness. Jesus  died ;  but  his  Spirit  remained  among  his  own,  replac- 
ing him,  or  rather,  making  him  more  truly  present,  more  active,  more 
powerful,  than  he  had  ever  been  in  the  days  of  his  flesh.1  This  is  the 
profound  meaning  of  that  enigmatic  and  almost  shocking  expression  to 
which  the  Evangelist  gives  utterance  with  regard  to  the  promise  of  the 
Spirit  made  by  Jesus  to  believers :  "  For  the  Spirit  was  not  yet,  because 
Jesus  had  not  yet  been  glorified."  2  The  Paraclete  could  not  come  so 
long  as  Jesus  was  not  gone  away.  The  symbolical  act  of  the  Risen 
Christ,  breathing  upon  his  disciples  at  the  moment  of  quitting  them,  and 
saying,  "  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Spirit,"  has  no  other  meaning.3 

From  this  dual  idea  of  the  Word  and  the  Spirit  flows  that  of  the  free 
and  permanent  inspiration  of  the  Christian.  To  be  a  Christian  is  to 
be  born  from  above,  that  is  to  say,  to  be  born  of  the  Spirit;  it  is  not 
only  to  drink  of  the  living  water  of  Christ's  words,  but  to  have  in  one's 
self  a  continually  upspringing  fountain  of  inspiration  and  strength ;  * 
to  have  the  Spirit,  not  intermittently  in  one's  happier  moments,  but 
always,  continually,  as  an  ever  indwelling  consciousness.  **  You  know 
him,"  says  Jesus,  "  because  he  dwells  with  you  and  is  in  you.  He  will 
henceforth  teach  you  all  things,  will  recall  to  your  minds  and  explain 
to  you  all  things  that  I  have  told  you.  He  is  the  Spirit  of  truth,  who 
comes  from  the  Father.  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  to  you,  but  you 
could  not  understand  them.  The  Spirit  will  lead  you  into  all  truth."  " 

How  better  can  it  be  explained  that  the  Christian  revelation  is  not 
a  book  closed  and  put  away ;  that  it  is  always  open  and  fluid ;  that  to  shut 
it  up  in  a  stereotyped  letter,  like  that  of  the  Mosaic  law,  is  to  misappre- 
hend it,  to  fall  from  the  height  on  which  Christ  sought  to  place  his  fol- 

1  John  xvi.  7, 12,  14,  21 ;  xiv.  12,  etc. 

•John  vii.  38,  39.    [The  word  "  given "  is  not  hi  the  Greek,  nor  is  it  supplied  in  the 
best  French  translations. — Tram.] 

•  John  xx.  22.  « John  vii.  38.  •  John  xiv.,  XT.,  xvL 


312       THE  IDEA  OF  THE  UNIVERSAL  PRIESTHOOD 

lowers;  that  in  fact,  this  highest  revelation  is  found  not  in  a  sort  of 
summa  of  doctrines  once  for  all  formulated  and  codified,  but  in  the 
immanence  and  continuity  of  a  revelatory  principle  in  the  Christian 
soul ;  not  in  a  book,  but  in  the  Spirit  which  inspires  the  writing  of  books, 
and  bears  witness  in  us  to  the  worth  and  the  truth  of  the  books  them- 
selves? 

IV 

The  Idea  of  the  Universal  Priesthood 

IN  no  other  New  Testament  writings  do  we  find  so  profound  a  con- 
ception of  Christian  inspiration  as  in  those  of  Paul  and  John,  but  none 
of  them  lack  indications  revealing  a  state  of  consciousness  such  as  has 
just  been  described. 

Thus  the  Epistle  of  James  shows  the  still  elementary  organisation 
of  the  earliest  Christian  communities.  The  religious  services,  the  min- 
istry of  the  word  and  of  confession,  which  later  became  the  monopoly 
of  a  clergy,  are  at  this  period  carried  on  by  all  members  of  the  Church 
according  to  their  individual  gifts.  The  author  deprecates  their  tend- 
ency to  immoderate  zeal,  exhorting  them  to  be  slow  to  speak  and  not 
court  the  authority  of  teacher.  Like  Paul,  and  with  the  same  meaning, 
he  calls  the  gospel  "  the  perfect  law  of  liberty."  1 

The  First  Epistle  of  Peter  gives  much  more  explicit  instruction, 
more  nearly  resembling  that  of  Paul,  to  whose  powerful  influence  it 
bears  witness.  Christians  are  the  regenerated,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  rests 
upon  them,  filling  them  with  hope  and  joy  in  the  midst  of  tribulations.2 
But  a  still  more  interesting  idea  emerges  from  these  brief  pages.  Not 
only  are  Christians  the  living  stones  of  the  new  building,  they  are  also 
a  royal  priesthood.8  In  the  almost  identical  terms  of  the  Revelation, 
Christ  has  made  them  "  kings  and  priests  "  for  God  his  Father.  Here, 
therefore,  the  idea  of  a  universal  priesthood  is  joined  to  that  of  uni- 

1  Jas.  iii.  1,  v.  16,  i.  25. 

*  1  Peter  i.  2,  3;  iv.  14:  rb  rov  6cov  VVCVIM  etf>'  fyiSj  dvavafarcu. 

•Ib.  ii.  5-9;  Rev.  i.  6,  v.  10;  Rom.  xii.  1. 


THE  TRADITION  OF  THE  RELIGION  313 

versai  inspiration.  In  the  Old  Covenant  three  classes  of  persons — kings, 
prophets,  and  priests — were  exalted  above  the  people,  to  govern,  to 
reveal  the  will  of  God,  and  to  serve  as  intermediaries  or  official  mediators 
between  them  and  God.  In  the  New  Covenant  the  elect  people,  the  holy 
nation  as  a  whole,  and  with  no  sort  of  distinction,  is  raised  to  this  triple 
dignity  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  thenceforth  abides  in  them.  Chris- 
tians are  all  at  once  and  individually  prophets,  priests,  and  kings.  But 
when  every  man  is  king,  clearly  no  man  is  subject;  where  everyone  is  his 
own  prophet  and  priest  there  can  be  no  exterior  authority  to  bind  the 
conscience  in  spite  of  itself.  Monarchy  and  oligarchy  with  their  grada- 
tions in  rank  have  given  place  to  a  religious  democracy,  to  the  republic 
of  fraternal  souls,  to  the  fundamental  equality  of  citizens  in  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

The  First  Gospel  narrates  how  at  the  very  moment  when  Jesus 
yielded  up  his  spirit  the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  from  top  to  bottom.1 
This  legend  has  a  profound  significance,  which  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews well  interprets.  The  veil  of  the  temple  was  a  curtain  which  shut 
off  the  Most  Holy  Place,  and  behind  it  none  might  pass.  By  the  death 
of  Christ  that  barrier  was  done  away,  and  the  Holy  of  Holies  in  which 
God  abides  was  made  accessible  to  all  believers.  By  such  figures  Jewish 
Christian  thought  expressed  essentially  the  same  thought  which  from  his 
point  of  view  Paul  clothed  in  more  mystical  expressions,  such  as  filial 
adoption,  peace  made  with  God,  the  abolition  of  the  law,  dying  and 
rising  again  with  Christ.  Everywhere  and  in  all  cases  we  find  an  intense 
feeling  that  the  old  economy  of  fear  and  servitude  has  been  done  away 
and  has  given  place  to  the  economy  of  liberty,  love,  and  joy. 

V 

The  Tradition  of  the  Religion  of  the  Spirit 

THE  religion  of  the  external  authority  of  rites  and  institutions  has 
in  the  Catholic  Church  a  tradition  greatly  enriched  and  strengthened  by 
1  Matt  xxvii.  61.    Cf.  Heb.  x.  19,  20. 


314  THE  TRADITION  OF  THE  RELIGION 

age ;  but  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  is  not  without  a  tradition  of  its  own. 
It  flows  beneath  the  other,  an  invisible  subterranean  stream  of  thought 
and  life  gushing  up  intermittently  through  breaches  that  become 
larger  with  the  advancing  years.  There  is  a  never-ceasing  struggle 
between  the  two  traditions  as  between  their  principles,  and  this  con- 
flict it  is  which  makes  the  religious  interest  of  the  drama  of  Church 
history. 

As  early  as  the  second  century  it  was  evident  that  the  Christian 
body  was  growing  inwardly  cold,  while  outwardly  increasing  in  numbers 
and  influence.  In  proportion  as  the  spiritual  and  moral  bonds  grew 
slack  which  at  first  sufficed  to  keep  the  body  united,  it  became  necessary  to 
strengthen  them  by  proportionate  exterior  bonds,  the  authority  of  the 
political  institution  and  of  the  sacramental  rite.  Little  by  little  the  word 
of  God  yielded  place  to  the  word  of  the  bishop,  for  heart  faith  was  substi- 
tuted the  rule  of  faith,  for  repentance  and  piety  the  sacrament,  legal 
discipline  for  fraternal  love  and  obedience  for  inspiration.  The  estab- 
lished order  was  held  to  be  the  divine  order ;  those  became  more  and  more 
rare  who  held  aloof  from  it  by  reason  of  independence  or  of  fidelity  to 
their  ideal;  they  were  either  fantastic  spirits  like  the  author  of  the 
"  Shepherd  of  Hermas,"  or  ranters  like  the  prophets  of  Montanism, 
whom  the  Church  condemned  as  heretics.  Henceforth  in  the  Catholic 
system  individual  inspiration,  the  self-assertion  of  the  conscience,  became 
the  worst  of  heresies,  being  the  mother  of  almost  all  the  others. 

It  would  be  to  show  equal  ignorance  and  injustice  to  indulge  in  sur- 
prise at  the  strange  and  unwholesome  forms  which  Christian  inspiration 
took  on  in  the  course  of  centuries,  sometimes  even  bordering  upon  men- 
tal alienation,  and  to  hold  them  up  as  the  sufficient  argument  against 
inspiration.  Religious  madmen  are  made  indeed  by  isolation,  persecu- 
tions, and  imprisonment.  The  dragoons  of  Louis  XIV  made  the 
prophets  of  the  Cevennes.  Under  the  oppression  of  a  tyrannical 
authority  all  forms  of  the  religious  life  become  changed,  imaginations 
are  stimulated,  and  minds  become  unsettled.  The  best  way  to  restore 


THE  TRADITION  OF  THE  RELIGION  315 

calmness  to  disquieted  souls  and  to  bring  their  personal  inspirations 
within  the  bounds  of  reason  is  to  establish  freedom  in  the  common  life. 

While  the  Catholic  Church  was  organising  its  formidable  system  of 
authority  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  took  refuge  below  the  surface,  and 
maintained  its  existence  in  the  inner  life  of  humble  and  pious  souls,  and 
in  the  travail  of  thought  of  a  few  elect  spirits.  For  example,  we  find 
it  burning  in  the  inspired  letter  of  the  Christians  of  Lyons  and  Vienne 
to  the  Churches  of  Asia,  which  we  read  in  Eusebius.  We  find  it  again 
in  a  loftier  and  somewhat  rationalistic  form  in  the  teachings  of  Origen 
and  Clement  of  Alexandria.  It  is  latent  in  every  great  theological 
speculation. 

In  the  early  centuries  its  finest  manifestation  and  most  exquisite  fruit 
are  found  in  the  "  Confessions  "  of  St.  Augustine.  There  were  two 
men  in  this  Doctor  of  the  Church ;  the  son  of  Monica  and  the  orthodox 
bishop,  the  man  of  the  Spirit  and  the  man  of  authority.  Likewise  in 
his  doctrine  we  find  the  theology  of  faith,  whence  have  issued  two  cur- 
rents, traversing  all  the  Middle  Ages :  the  scholastic  stream  which  ends 
in  the  triumph  of  Roman  Curialism  and  the  mystical  stream  which  ends 
in  the  Reformation.  The  ardent  piety  of  St.  Bernard  and  of  Gerson, 
the  theology  of  St.  Victor  and  his  disciples,  the  "  Imitation  of  Jesus 
Christ,"  the  preaching  of  Tauler,  the  Friends  of  God,  the  Brothers  of 
the  Common  Life,  the  reforms  of  Peter  Waldo  and  the  initiative  of 
Francis  of  Assisi,  are  proofs  that  the  divine  stream  never  ran  dry,  and 
that,  whether  under  the  open  sky  or  in  the  shades  of  monastic  retreats, 
it  never  ceased  to  refresh  those  souls  that  were  athirst  for  God. 

It  grew  larger,  stronger,  more  free,  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Luther  and  Calvin  triumphantly  levelled  the  bounds  which  had  impris- 
oned it.  Authority  was  vanquished  by  conscience,  piety  was  enfran- 
chised from  its  ancient  wardship — at  least  in  principle.  It  shared  the 
life  of  the  age,  and  came  into  immediate  contact  with  modern  culture, 
thenceforth  being  at  once  influenced  by  and  freely  influencing  it.  Thus 
we  see  religion  renouncing  its  claim  to  a  separate  and  supernatural 


316  THE  TRADITION  OF  THE  RELIGION 

existence,  becoming  more  and  more  laicised,  after  the  example  of  all 
other  normal  activities  of  the  spirit,  entering  the  domain  of  human 
affairs,  and  there  acting  as  an  inward  leaven  to  raise  the  inert  mass, 
not  changing  its  nature,  but  regenerating  and  sanctifying  it.  Under 
the  massive  form  of  a  divine  sacerdotal  system  and  an  intangible  dogma 
religion  is  a  fetter  or  a  menace  to  social  and  individual  development; 
set  free  from  the  rites  and  institutions  with  which  it  had  been  identified, 
it  becomes  a  penetrating  fluid,  a  savour  of  life,  carrying  health  and 
peace  wherever  it  goes.  I  admit  that  I  am  speaking  of  a  new  religious 
ideal,  but  it  is  an  ideal  which  since  the  sixteenth  century  has  been  becom- 
ing ever  more  and  more  a  reality. 

The  Reformation  of  Luther,  the  pietism  and  critical  rationalism  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  the  religious  revival  of  the 
nineteenth,  and  finally  the  present  alliance  of  Christian  life  with  scien- 
tific theology,  are  waymarks  along  the  road,  marking  the  progress  made 
by  the  religion  of  the  Spirit. 

We  are  able  to  judge  more  accurately  of  its  principle  and  its  forms 
than  could  the  greatest  minds  of  past  ages.  Delirium  no  longer  appears 
to  us,  as  to  Plato,  the  highest  manifestation  of  the  divine  spirit.  To 
be  the  subject  of  visions,  ecstasies,  hallucinations,  to  hear  voices,  fall  into 
convulsions,  and  speak  by  inarticulate  cries  or  obscure  sounds,  are  so 
many  symptoms  of  diseases  whose  course  is  known,  and  which  the  science 
of  medicine  undertakes  to  alleviate  or  cure.  In  like  manner,  thought  is 
set  free  from  the  old  antithesis  of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  since 
our  idea  of  nature  has  become  large  enough  and  flexible  enough  to 
include  all  phenomena,  ordinary  and  extraordinary  when  duly  authenti- 
cated, and  our  piety  profound  enough  and  spiritual  enough  to  feel  the 
divine  influence  even  more  surely  in  the  harmonious  and  regular  course 
of  things  than  in  such  events  as  at  times  seem  to  interrupt  it.  There- 
fore it  is  for  just  cause  that  we  have  come  to  recognise  divine  inspira- 
tion more  easily  in  a  healthy  condition  of  our  being  than  in  morbid 
states,  and  in  the  calm  and  clear  voice  of  reason  and  conscience 


THE  TRADITION  OF  THE  RELIGION  317 

rather  than  in  the  tumult  and  disorder  of  the  senses  and  the  imag- 
ination. 

If  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  spirit  of  man  thus  gives 
itself  to  be  recognised  most  perfectly  in  the  active  energy  of  the  latter, 
in  the  normal  and  honest  play  and  deploying  of  all  his  faculties,  it  is 
clear  that  not  only  there  can  never  be  any  irreducible  antagonism  be- 
tween the  religion  of  the  Spirit  and  modern  science  and  ethics,  but  that 
both  the  investigations  and  acquisitions  of  the  one,  the  generous  and 
holy  affirmations  of  the  other,  must  unceasingly  appear  to  a  sound  piety 
as  positive  forms  and  manifestations  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  The 
gospel,  which  is  the  preaching  of  this  religion  at  once  human  and  divine, 
proposes  not  to  ransom  and  sanctify  merely  one  part  of  man,  but  the 
entire  man,  with  all  his  faculties;  so  that  in  the  end  the  established 
kingdom  of  God  shall  coincide  perfectly  with  the  realisation  of  the 
largest  and  highest  ideal  of  human  activity.  All  asceticism,  and  the 
dualism  which  asceticism  implies,  are  thus  radically  done  away  in  religion 
as  in  morals  and  culture. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  reduced  to  these  terms  will  not  the  religion  of 
the  Spirit  be  a  useless  luxury,  at  best  a  poem?  To  ask  this  is  in  fact 
to  ask  if  the  sentiment  of  the  presence  of  God  in  the  heart,  the  conscience, 
and  the  reason  is  something  superfluous,  and  faith  in  his  help  in  the 
inward  and  outward  struggles  and  temptations  of  life  a  vanity.  To 
this  question  we  have  not  only  the  reply  of  pious  men  who  have  made 
the  experiment,  in  all  their  native  weaknesses  and  wretchedness,  and  can 
say  at  what  price  the  victory  may  be  won,  we  can  also  appeal  to  the 
testimony  of  sober-minded  moralists,  who  know  that  it  is  impossible  for 
man  to  believe  in  himself  without  believing  in  God,  who  consecrates  the 
human  ideal,  and  maintains  its  ultimate  sovereignty  over  the  blind 
fatalism  of  physical  nature.  To  state  it  aright,  whoever  does  not 
despair  of  the  ideal  duty  imposed  upon  him,  whoever  affirms  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  good  in  the  world,  asserts  the  presence  and  influence  of  God ; 
for  the  good  is  his  highest  name,  and  the  progress  of  the  good  in 


318  THE  TRADITION  OF  THE  RELIGION 

us  upon  earth  and  in  heaven  is  properly  his  mysterious  and  blessed 
work. 

Human  faculties  and  the  whole  human  being  have  two  sides  which 
are  in  striking  and  tragical  contrast.  On  one  side  are  reason,  senti- 
ment, consciousness,  things  vacillating,  desperately  miserable,  and  by 
nature  affected  with  a  powerlessness  which  easily  gives  reason  to  sceptics 
and  pessimists !  He  who  does  not  feel  all  this  deceives  or  stultifies  him- 
self.- There  is  always  a  touch  of  melancholy  in  the  most  serious  effort 
and  even  in  the  most  fortunate  success.  But  on  the  other  hand,  under 
all  manifestations  of  this  ephemeral  and  empirical  Me  there  is  I  know 
not  what  invincible  force,  what  ever  renewed  energy,  what  ever  up- 
springing  fountain  of  faith  and  hope  in  the  Spirit  following  upon  all 
disappointments,  all  defeats.  Est  Deus  in  nobis.  In  £he  Me  there  is  a 
mysterious  guest,  greater  than  the  Me,  and  to  which  the  Me  instinctively 
addresses  its  prayer  and  its  trust.  Wretchedness  and  grandeur,  defeat 
and  victory,  all  weakness  and  all  strength !  In  each  human  being  exists 
that  strange  contrast  which  we  find  so  strikingly  in  the  life  and  death 
of  him  who  called  himself  the  Son  of  man,  in  whom  were  united  all 
that  is  weakest  and  most  sorrowful  in  humanity  and  all  that  is  strongest 
and  sweetest  in  God.  Our  name,  like  his,  is  truly  Emmanuel:  God 
with  us. 

The  transformation  of  the  Christian  consciousness  and  its  liberation 
from  all  exterior  servitude  began  on  the  day  when  piety  and  science  first 
met.  They  will  be  completed,  and  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  will  reign, 
all  systems  of  authority  having  been  done  away,  on  the  day  when 
piety  and  science  shall  have  become  so  mutually  interpenetrated  as  to  be 
thoroughly  united  into  a  single  entity;  inward  piety  the  conscience  of 
science,  and  science  the  legitimate  expression  of  piety.  This  being  the 
case,  nothing  appears  to  be  more  urgent  than  the  constitution  of  a  truly 
scientific  theology. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

THE    CONTENT    OF    THE    RELIGION    OF    THE    SPIRIT 

I 

An  Antinomy  Resolved 

CONSIDERED  exclusively  in  its  antithesis  with  the  religions  of  authority, 
the  religion  of  the  Spirit  appears  chiefly  under  a  formal  and  negative 
aspect.  It  is  easy  to  see  what  it  is  not;  what  it  is  does  not  appear. 
Nevertheless  the  Spirit  which  enfranchises  the  religious  consciousness, 
giving  it  its  inner  norm,  is  a  positive  and  well-defined  power.  To  arrive 
at  a  complete  definition  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  this  power  must  be 
defined  and  its  principle  recognised. 

The  form  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  is  liberty;  its  content  is  the 
gospel. 

But  here  an  antinomy  at  once  presents  itself,  which  it  is  before  all 
things  important  to  examine  and  resolve.  Is  it  possible  to  attribute 
to  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  a  substantial  and  particular  content  with- 
out compromising  its  pure  spirituality?  Is  not  the  device  of  modern 
Protestantism — the  gospel  and  liberty — in  itself  contradictory?  Must 
not  liberty  destroy  the  gospel?  Does  not  the  gospel  restrain  liberty? 

It  is  evident  that  everything  here  depends  upon  the  notion  which  is 
entertained  of  the  gospel  and  of  liberty.  The  contradiction  is  flagrant 
and  irreconcilable  if  by  the  gospel  is  understood  an  exterior  letter,  a  for- 
mula, a  doctrine  authoritatively  imposed  upon  man,  or  if  liberty  is 
understood  as  a  state  of  absolute  indecision  and  indifference.  But  if 
to  be  free  is  to  be  autonomous,  that  is,  to  have  the  law  within  one's  self, 
and  if  the  gospel  is  nothing  else  than  the  incitement  to  a  purely  reli- 
gious and  moral  act,  the  result  of  which  is  to  bring  God  to  dwell  in 
the  consciousness  as  its  very  principle,  its  peculiar  energy  and  law, 


320  AN  ANTINOMY  RESOLVED 

nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  that  the  apparent  antithesis  between 
liberty  and  the  gospel  finds  a  happy  solution  in  the  very  notion  of  the 
Spirit.  What,  in  fact,  is  the  free  spirit,  if  not  the  spirit  which  has  in 
itself  its  own  law  and  power  of  decision? 

We  must  strip  the  subject  of  logical  abstractions  which  warp  the 
data  of  the  problem.  Unquestionably,  abstract  freedom  is  identical 
with  absolute  indeterminateness,  but  absolute  indeterminateness  is  a 
word  empty  of  all  reality ;  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  religious  and  moral 
life.  Everything  that  exists  is  determined,  because  everything  that 
exists  is  conditioned.  Liberty  is  a  quality,  a  form  of  the  activity  of 
the  spirit,  but  the  spirit  is  free  only  to  determine  itself,  and  not  to 
remain  in  a  state  of  indetermination,  which  would  be  self-destruction. 
Indeterminateness  is  annihilation.  Whence  it  follows  that  liberty  re- 
maining persistently  undetermined  becomes  the  contrary  of  liberty,  its 
negation.  It  turns  back  upon  and  destroys  itself.  It  is  as  if  the  will 
consisted  in  willing  nothing. 

This  is  why  liberty  has  a  law.  In  morals,  its  necessary  content  and 
its  law  is  duty.  Let  no  one  say  that  the  law  of  duty  restrains  or 
destroys  liberty ;  experience  demonstrates  the  contrary.  Duty  sustains, 
fosters,  gives  life  to  liberty.  In  fact,  outside  of  duty  there  is  no 
liberty,  as  without  liberty  there  is  no  duty.  They  are  correlative  and 
inseparable  terms,  like  form  and  substance.  Liberty  is  the  form  of 
duty,  and  duty  is  the  substance  of  liberty. 

The  religious  consciousness  yields  to  the  same  analysis  as  the  moral 
consciousness.  Here  again  active  liberty  is  not  the  indeterminateness 
of  consciousness,  but  its  autonomy.  The  common  notion  that  liberty 
consists  in  doing  or  not  doing,  thinking  or  not  thinking,  willing  or  not 
willing  whatever  one  may  choose,  degrades  liberty  to  caprice,  and 
caprice,  being  determined  by  the  reflex  movements  of  the  organism,  is 
precisely  the  opposite  of  liberty.  To  be  free  is  not  to  be  without  law, 
it  is  to  obey  the  law  of  one's  being;  servitude  is  subjection  to  that  of 
another.  The  individual  man  from  his  birth  is  in  a  state  of  becoming, 


AN  ANTINOMY  RESOLVED  321 

as  humanity  has  been  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.  Emerging 
from  animality,  man  is  not,  he  is  being  made;  he  is  called  to  realise 
his  moral  being  according  to  what  physiologists  call  a  "  directing " 
or  a  "  morphological  "  idea  latent  in  his  organism,  which  is  what  Chris- 
tians call  the  power  and  vocation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  inherent  in  his 
soul.  This  idea,  or  rather,  this  force  which  from  on  high  calls  him 
and  draws  him,  is  the  moral  substance  of  his  Me,  the  ideal  law  of  his 
being,  which  he  must  obey  under  peril  of  destroying  himself,  of  falling 
short  of  life  and  happiness,  of  losing  himself.  Resisting  this  law  he 
resists  not  another,  but  himself.  God  is  in  man,  but  in  such  wise  that 
man  can  do  violence  to  God  only  by  first  smiting  and  wounding  himself. 

In  fact,  the  law  of  his  being  is  the  law  of  Him  who  called  him  into 
life.  Divine  law  and  human  law  are  essentially  identical.  And  it  is  this 
immanent  law  which,  in  proportion  as  man  becomes  more  clearly  con- 
scious of  it,  necessarily  constitutes  him  at  the  same  time  dependent,  in 
his  character  as  a  created  being,  and  free,  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  moral 
and  spiritual  being.  This  is  why  there  is  such  a  thing  as  religion. 
Religion  is  the  vital  and  happy  reconciliation  of  dependence  and  free- 
dom. 

Thence  it  follows  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  moral  being,  that  is,  a 
being  who  knows  and  consents  to  the  law  of  his  being,  not  to  be  in  some 
measure  religious,  the  religious  sentiment  being  at  bottom  nothing  other 
than  the  sentiment  of  the  relation  between  the  moral  being  and  the  law 
which  governs  him.  For  this  it  is  not  necessary  to  believe  in  God  in  the 
traditional  sense  of  the  word;  every  man  who  inwardly  consents  to  and 
devotes  himself  to  his  law,  the  ideal  law  of  humanity,  and  wills  this-  law, 
performs  an  act  of  religious  faith,  avowedly  or  not,  in  the  precise 
measure  of  the  energy  and  sincerity  of  his  consent ;  he  prostrates  himself 
and  performs  an  act  of  adoration. 

The  freedom  of  the  religious  consciousness  does  not  then  depend  upon 
the  denial  of  this  relation,  but  upon  the  terms  in  which  it  is  constituted, 
the  rule  which  conditions  and  determines  it.  Just  as  my  moral  con- 


322  AN  ANTINOMY  RESOLVED 

sciousness  is  oppressed  by  a  legislation,  civil  or  otherwise,  whose  pre- 
scriptions are  entirely  foreign  to  it,  so  my  religious  consciousness  may 
be  oppressed  by  being  subjected  to  the  yoke  of  an  exterior  authority 
which  clashes  with  its  personal  inspirations.  Inevitably  conflict  and 
revolt  result  from  such  a  condition.  But  my  religious  consciousness 
regains  liberty  and  joy  so  soon  as  it  becomes  again  autonomous,  that 
is,  so  soon  as  it  recognises  that  the  law  to  which  it  has  given  its  faith 
is  in  reality  nothing  other  than  its  own  law. 

Such  a  condition  is  not  produced  all  at  once  nor  in  a  single  day. 
The  progress  of  history  and  that  of  education  have  part  in  it.  The 
conditions  and  the  phases  under  which  human  life  is  developed  render 
necessary  also  stages  of  progress  in  the  religious  evolution.  The  child 
is  born  in  tutelage  and  must  be  guided  by  an  external  law;  but  his 
parents  and  masters,  by  awakening  his  reason  and  conscience,  bring  to 
light  within  him  an  inward  inspiration  which  is  nourished  and  strength- 
ened by  all  it  feeds  on,  and  soon  asserts  itself  as  an  autonomous  power, 
which  judges  of  all  things,  and  will  obey  only  where  it  is  first  convinced. 
This  power  is  the  divine  element  in  man ;  it  is  the  Spirit  witnessing  with 
his  spirit ;  it  is  the  source  of  all  true  conviction.  Authority  and  custom 
may  impose  a  belief,  but  the  inward  witness  alone  can  give  conviction 
of  it.  This  is  why  the  inward  tribunal  is  the  last  appeal  for  every  con- 
scious adult  individual.  Look  at  Luther  at  Worms  facing  all  the 
authority  of  the  Church  and  the  Empire  with  the  words :  "  I  can  do 
no  otherwise ;  God  help  me !  " 

Thus,  by  the  mere  progress  of  moral  and  religious  education  the 
rule  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  in  early  years  an  exterior  force,  becomes 
more  and  more  interior;  and  purifying  itself  more  and  more,  ridding 
itself  of  all  that  is  not  strictly  spiritual  and  moral,  becomes  incor- 
porated with  the  very  consciousness  and  cannot  be  distinguished  from  it. 

In  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  this  interiorising  process  of  the  reli- 
gious and  moral  law  was  perfectly  carried  out,  and  became  the  very 
principle  of  his  gospel.  To  Jesus  of  Nazareth  there  was  nothing  ex- 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SALVATION  323 

ternal  in  religion.  The  new  covenant  which  he  brought  to  men  was  not 
written  upon  tables  of  stone,  but  upon  the  tables  of  his  heart,  and  sealed 
by  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Never  was  will  more  submissive  to 
the  will  of  God,  and  never  was  will  more  autonomous.  The  divine  and 
the  human  were  so  intimately  interpenetrated  that  the  first  found  its 
full  and  complete  revelation  in  the  second.  Jesus  never  appears  to  act 
by  constraint;  he  is  always  inspired.  His  religion  was  essentially  the 
religion  of  the  Spirit,  and  remains  forever  its  source  and  its  perfect 
type.  He  desired  to  communicate  to  his  disciples  this  religious  and 
moral  consciousness,  at  once  submissive,  autonomous,  inspired  by  the 
inward  presence  of  God,  that  they  too  might  become  sons  of  the  Father, 
and  free  like  himself.  It  was,  properly  speaking,  his  Spirit  which  would 
pass  into  all  Christians,  giving  them  all  to  have  in  themselves  the  norm 
of  thought  and  life.  "  Where  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is,  there  is  liberty." 
Of  this  Spirit  the  gospel  is  simply  the  vehicle  and  the  expression. 
It  is  not  a  new  law,  nor  a  code  of  new  beliefs ;  it  is  the  law  of  the  Father 
and  the  truth  of  the  Father  becoming  inward  in  man ;  it  is  a  permanent 
fountain  of  inspiration,  so  that  the  gospel  properly  becomes  the  law  of 
human  consciousness  and  is  forever  inseparable  from  it.  Thus  is  estab- 
lished the  same,  correlation  which  has  already  been  shown  to  exist  be- 
tween moral  liberty  and  duty.  The  religion  of  the  Spirit  is  the  ade- 
quate and  natural  form  of  the  gospel,  and  the  gospel  is  the  content, 
the  very  substance,  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  They  form  an  organic 
unity,  which  is  destroyed  when  they  are  separated  and  set  one  over 
against  the  other. 

n 

The  Gospel  of  Salvation 

THIS  conviction  becomes  stronger  in  proportion  as  one  penetrates  more 
deeply  into  the  spirit,  the  innermost  meaning,  and  the  specific  character 
of  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  Here  an  effort  is  the  more  necessary  because 
the  Master,  who  spoke  the  language  and  made  use  of  the  ideas  of  his 


324  THE  GOSPEL  OF  SALVATION 

time,  always  clung  closely  to  the  traditions  of  his  people,  and  further- 
more, suited  his  teachings  always  to  the  occasion,  and  always  said  to 
his  hearers  just  that  which  they  personally  needed  to  hear;  hence  it  is 
continually  necessary  that  we  should  overlook  the  details  of  his  teach- 
ings, and  pierce  through  their  historic  envelope,  if  we  would  seize  the 
common  thought  which  inspires  them,  the  general  purpose  which  was 
revealed  in  them.  Never  was  teaching  more  desultory,  and  nevertheless, 
never  was  teaching  more  a  unit,  nor  more  consistent.  The  question 
is  simply  whether  it  was  really  a  teaching  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word. 

I  have  read  the  Gospels  and  re-read  them.  Never  once,  in  any  con- 
nection, not  more  in  the  narrative  of  St.  John  than  in  the  synoptic 
tradition,  have  I  found  Jesus  in  the  order  of  the  idea,  or  of  theoretic 
instruction ;  he  is  always  in  the  practical  order  of  life  and  moral  activity. 
He  never  claimed  to  be  a  philosopher  or  a  learned  teacher,  but  a  physi- 
cian.1 I  should  be  at  a  loss  to  say  what  new  knowledge  or  belief  he 
introduced  into  the  world.  The  mysteries  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which 
he  revealed  are  such  as  can  be  revealed  to  the  heart  of  the  ignorant  and 
the  humble,  not  to  the  mind  of  the  intelligent  and  the  wise.  What  he 
brought  in  himself  and  sought  to  communicate  was  a  new  life.  His 
work  was  therapeutic;  he  sought  to  restore  the  entire  human  being  to 
health.  With  him  teaching  was  only  a  means  of  healing.  He  himself 
thus  characterised  his  ministry  in  his  reply  to  the  messengers  from  the 
Baptist,  and  his  first  preaching  at  Nazareth.  The  Son  of  man  is  come 
to  seek  that  which  is  lost,  to  heal  the  sick,  to  preach  good  things  to  the 
poor,  to  serve,  and  to  give  his  life  as  a  ransom  for  those  who  are  the 
slaves  of  evil  in  all  its  forms.2 

No  one  ever  gains  anything  by  discussing  ideas  with  him.  It  always 
gives  rise  to  misapprehension,  for  those  he  offers  and  those  that  are 
asked  of  him  are  not  in  the  same  order  of  things.  Plato  asks  what  are 
the  relations  between  the  ideal  and  the  real;  Laplace  seeks  to  know  the 

1  Mark  ii.  17,  and  paral. 

*  Matt  xi.  1-6;  Luke  iv.  17-19;  Matt.  xi.  28;  Luke  xix.  10;  Mark  x,  45,  etc. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SALVATION  326 

origin  of  the  Cosmos;  criticism  seeks  to  discover  whether  the  books  at- 
tributed to  Moses  are  really  his ;  and  Jesus,  as  if  he  had  not  heard  them, 
replies,  in  his  sweet,  strong  voice,  "  Blessed  are  the  poor,  theirs  is  the 
Kingdom ;  blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness ; 
blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart!  Come  unto  me,  ye  who  labour  and  are 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest ! "  Evidently,  under  these  con- 
ditions, conversation  is  impossible. 

Jesus,  as  Pascal  says,  did  not  come,  and  needed  not  to  come,  with  the 
pomp  of  Alexander  or  the  genius  and  knowledge  of  Archimedes.  He 
came  with  the  only  distinctions  of  his  order — holiness  and  charity.  He 
addressed  himself  to  the  heart,  because  in  the  heart  are  all  the  issues 
of  life,  springs  that  he  desired  to  reopen  and  cleanse,  being  sure  that  in 
renewing  them  he  would  renew  the  whole  life. 

For  this  reason,  having  been  born  in  the  tradition  of  his  people,  he 
remained  within  its  limits  with  perfect  simplicity,  and  related  all  his 
teachings  to  it.  In  all  freedom  he  moved  within  the  narrow  framework 
of  popular  notions,  as  a  physician  in  the  cabin  of  the  poor  makes  use 
of  such  resources  and  appliances  as  it  may  furnish,  and  with  their  help 
saves  the  sick  to  whom  he  has  been  called. 

What  matter  forms  and  methods?  It  was  not  in  ideas  and  theories 
that  Jesus  rested  his  confidence.  He  knew  that  the  virtue  of  his  words 
was  in  himself.  It  was  the  presence  and  the  gift  of  his  person  which 
acted  upon  souls,  whatever  the  form  or  the  means  by  which  his  presence 
was  manifested  and  his  gift  applied.  He  therefore  spoke  and  acted 
at  any  given  time  in  the  manner  best  adapted  to  bring  himself  into  con- 
tact with  those  whom  he  met  along  his  way;  his  one  purpose  was  to 
touch  the  central  vital  point  at  which  life  could  be  called  into  being. 
His  preachings  and  promises  are  in  Messianic  and  eschatological  form 
because  they  could  have  been  in  no  other.  But  all  this  was  only  the 
outer  shell.  It  must  be  broken  if  we  would  reach  the  tender  and  relish- 
ing kernel.  To  heal  and  to  save  were  for  him  synonymous  terms.  This 
is  why  his  gospel  is  the  gospel  of  salvation.  Salvation  is  the  end  of 


326  THE  GOSPEL  OF  SALVATION 

every  religion,  but  the  idea  of  salvation  is  as  variable  as  that  of  the 
highest  good;  it  becomes  exalted  and  ennobled  along  with  consciousness 
itself.  The  savage  asks  his  fetich  for  a  fish  or  for  good  hunting,  be- 
cause his  existence  depends  upon  them.  For  the  pious  Israelite  of  old 
the  idea  of  salvation  was  still  confined  to  that  of  individual  and  national 
felicity,  with  a  long  life  upon  earth.  In  the  prophets  the  idea  became 
spiritualised.  Into  the  hope  of  Messianic  salvation  entered  a  strong 
admixture  of  the  material  and  moral  elements  of  happiness.  In  the 
consciousness  of  Jesus  the  moral  notion  became  dominant ;  the  apocalyp- 
tic framework  of  the  Kingdom  was  not  eliminated  from  his  discourses, 
but  the  centre  of  gravity  of  faith  was  displaced;  henceforth  it  is  in 
the  heart.  Salvation  is  deliverance  from  the  power  of  evil,  it  is  filial 
communion  with  God,  which,  restored  to  its  proper  place  in  the  heart, 
henceforth  becomes  the  spring  of  the  believer's  peace  and  joy,  the  true 
germ  of  eternal  life,  the  victory  of  the  Spirit. 

It  is  impossible  for  man  to  become  conscious  of  himself  without  sit- 
ting in  judgment  upon  himself.  This  judgment  of  conscience  awakens 
within  him  the  immediate  and  universal  sense  of  sin,  which  is  the  more 
vivid  and  profound  as  God  speaks  more  loudly  and  distinctly  within  him. 
The  sense  of  sin  is  born  in  us  of  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This 
is  why  it  is  an  essential  and  primitive  element  of  the  religion  of  the 
Spirit.  To  hope  to  enter  it  by  another  door  is  to  indulge  in  a  very 
dangerous  delusion. 

Undoubtedly  Jesus  did  not  fail  to  recognise  the  diversity  of  moral 
disposition  among  individuals ;  he  used  without  scruple  the  popular 
categories  of  "  good  and  bad,"  "  just  and  unjust."  But  his  true 
thought  is  not  doubtful,  when  refusing  for  himself  the  title  of  "  good," 
he  reserves  it  for  God  alone;  or  when  he  relates  the  parable  of  the 
Pharisee  and  the  Publican,  or  distinctly  says  that  the  tree  must  be  made 
good  before  it  can  bear  good  fruit.  Jesus  never  discusses  nor  speculates 
upon  the  origin  and  essence  of  sin;  he  constructs  no  theory  of  it,  he 
simply  proposes  to  awaken  a  sense  of  it.  He  makes  use  of  the  most 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SALVATION  327 

familiar  images,  such  as  a  mortal  illness,  a  debt  which  the  debtor  cannot 
extinguish  and  the  creditor  must  remit,  a  weakness  of  the  flesh,  a  dis- 
respect of  the  will  of  God,  a  corruption  of  the  heart,  an  evil  power 
forming  an  empire  of  which  Satan  is  the  head.  But  these  are  simply  so 
many  popular  locutions  and  figures  of  speech  which  it  would  be  useless 
to  press  in  the  hope  of  deducing  from  them  any  dogmatic  theory  what- 
soever. For  Jesus,  they  were  mediums  and  methods  by  which  to  arouse 
and  deepen  the  sense  of  sin  and  create  a  moral  disposition  toward  re- 
pentance, a  desire  for  pardon  and  inward  amendment,  to  which  the 
*  good  message  "  which  he  brought  to  sinners  in  the  name  of  the  Father 
would  at  once  respond. 

Nor  does  he  step  outside  the  limits  of  moral  and  religious  experience 
when  he  explains  the  content  of  the  divine  message;  he  replies  to  the 
uncertain  voice  of  the  human  conscience  by  proclaiming  the  gospel  of 
pardon.  God  is  a  father ;  he  loves  his  sick  and  wandering  children  with 
a  love  that  surpasses  thought.  He  seeks  after  them,  pardons  them, 
calls  them  to  himself;  he  desires  to  save  them,  and  to  give  them,  with 
his  Spirit,  eternal  life.  Jesus  is  no  less  formal  with  regard  to  the  con- 
ditions of  pardon  and  salvation.  He  lays  down  only  one — faith. 
"  Change  your  ways  and  believe  the  good  news."  We  say  only  one,  for 
the  change  of  ways,  the  return  to  God  by  repentance,  and  faith,  are  not 
two  things  which  it  is  possible  to  separate.  Repentance  is  the  beginning 
of  faith,  and  faith  is  the  completion  of  repentance.  Both  belong  to 
the  moral  order  of  heart  and  will,  and  to  the  intellectual  order  of 
knowledge. 

Care  must  be  taken  not  to  confuse  faith  with  belief.  Being  different 
in  origin,  the  two  words  are  of  very  distinct  significance ;  they  designate 
two  acts  of  the  soul,  which,  notwithstanding  their  intimate  alliance  and 
frequent  simultaneity,  belong  to  two  orders  as  different  as  those  of  the 
heart  and  the  intelligence.  In  the  evangelical  sense,  and  in  the  dis- 
courses of  Jesus  Christ,  faith  always  implies  a  moral  relation  between 
person  and  person.  It  is  an  act  of  confidence  in  God,  in  his  justice  and 


328  THE  GOSPEL  OF   SALVATION 

his  love,  the  gift  of  the  entire  heart,  the  consecration  of  the  will.1  The 
nature  of  faith  is  determined  by  its  object.  This  object  is  God,  coming 
in  person  to  man  with  his  promises,  blotting  out  sin  and  taking  up  his 
abode  in  the  conscience  of  men  as  a  Spirit  of  strength  and  life,  to  cause 
the  spirit  of  those  who  receive  him  to  live  and  develop.  This  is  why 
faith  is  necessarily  followed  by  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  this  is  why  it  jus- 
tifies and  sanctifies  the  sinner. 

Faith  thus  understood  is  God  consciously  felt  in  the  heart,  the 
inward  revelation  of  God  and  of  his  habitation  in  us.  This  is  the  reli- 
gious originality  of  the  gospel,  the  characteristic  which  most  profoundly 
separates  it  from  the  Mosaic  and  other  religions  of  antiquity.  Faith, 
then,  remains  the  generating  principle  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit,  for 
in  and  by  it  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  spirit  of  man  meet,  enter  into 
one  another,  and  so  form  a  happy  and  indissoluble  unity. 

From  one  end  to  the  other  the  gospel  of  salvation  moves  in  the  order 
of  the  moral  life:  sense  of  sin,  repentance,  love  of  God,  faith,  all  these 
elements  are  of  the  same  nature.  Salvation  and  the  higher  life  of  the 
Spirit  are  not  bound  to  a  doctrinal  yoke,  a  burden  of  practices  and  good 
works  which  a  man  must  take  upon  his  shoulders,  will  he  nill  he,  by  ascetic 
virtue.  Cease,  then,  troubled  souls,  from  needlessly  tormenting  your- 
selves with  the  belief  that  you  are  outside  of  the  religion  of  salvation 
because  you  vainly  attempt  to  appropriate  dogmas  and  beliefs  against 
which  your  reason  and  conscience  invincibly  protest.  And  you  also, 
souls  out  of  conceit  with  faith ;  no  longer  turn  away  from  the  gospel  of 
salvation  because  an  intolerable  theology  has  awakened  in  you  disdain 
or  contempt.  There  is  nothing  in  the  gospel  which  your  conscience 
may  not  recognise  as  that  highest  good  to  which  secretly  it  aspires; 
nothing  which,  if  you  sincerely  desire  it,  you  cannot  yourself  experience, 
and  thus  recognise  it  as  the  very  soul  of  your  soul.  The  true  gospel  is 
the  salvation  of  every  man  in  distress,  by  enabling  him  trustfully  to 

1  Mark  xi.  22:  exere  ifianv  3eoO.    Matt.  xxi.  21  r   Fidem  quam  par  eat,  excellently 
says  Bengel,  habere  eos  qui  Deum  habent. 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST  329 
return  to  God.  It  is  all  the  simple  and  yet  profound  story  of  the 
Prodigal  Son.1 

m 

The  Gospel  of  Salvation  and  the  Person  of  Christ 

HERE  we  reach  the  real  difficulty.  Does  not  the  person  of  Jesus  occupy 
the  central  place  in  his  gospel?  Is  it  not  presented  as  the  object  of 
faith  and  love?  Can  one  be  a  Christian  without  being  attached  to  his 
person  by  an  especial  tie?  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  this  exterior  his- 
toric element  is  essential  to  Christianity,  can  the  latter  still  be  proposed 
as  pure  religion,  the  wholly  interior  and  moral  religion  of  the  Spirit? 

I  have  nowhere  found  this  point  satisfactorily  cleared  up.  The 
most  pious  as  the  most  learned  men  waver  between  the  orthodox  solu- 
tion, which  makes  of  the  historic  person  of  Jesus  a  metaphysical  entity, 
a  second  God  in  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  and  the  solution  of  Unitarian 
rationalism,  which  breaks  every  tie  between  the  person  of  Jesus  and  the 
Christian  faith,  and  makes  him  a  prophet,  and  a  martyr  to  his  gospel. 
Some  mitigate  the  orthodox  doctrine,  contenting  themselves  with  affirm- 
ing the  pre-existence  of  the  person  of  Jesus,  but  none  the  less  setting  him 
apart  from  the  human  race,  making  him  radically  a  stranger  to  it, 
simply  entering  and  passing  through  it  by  an  arbitrary  act  of  his  will. 
Others  with  pious  effusion  veil  their  rationalism  with  a  mystical  cloud, 
but  at  bottom  Jesus  remains  a  man,  and  they  cannot  explain  the  part 
which  he  attributes  to  himself  when  he  says  to  his  disciples,  "  Come  to 
me,  believe  in  me,  confess  me  before  men,  love  me  more  than  father  or 
mother,  follow  me,"  etc.  The  former  offend  against  history,  the  latter 
against  piety,  or  rather,  they  wound  the  Christian  consciousness  in  its 
deepest  and  most  sensitive  place. 

The  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  distorts  the  true 
character  of  the  gospel  of  salvation  not  less  than  the  rational  doctrine, 
and  is  no  less  outside  the  authentic  preaching  of  the  Master.  To  what 

in  his  person  do  they  in  fact  attract  the  attention  and  adoration  of  the 

1  Appendix  XCII. 


330        THE  GOSPEL  AND  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST 

believer?  Is  it  not  above  all  to  his  metaphysical  dignity,  (eternal  pre- 
existence,  homoousia  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  etc.),  that  is,  to  an  ele- 
ment in  which  there  is  nothing  moral  or  religious,  from  which  it  results 
that  we  ought  to  adore  Jesus  because  of  his  exalted  nature,  his  tran- 
scendent and  divine  power,  independently  of  what  he  has  done  for  us? 
All  this  is  positively  outside  of  Christianity  and  outside  of  the  gospel 
of  salvation.  Jesus  never  demanded  such  adoration  from  his  disciples 
nor  laid  claim  to  this  metaphysical  dignity.  In  this  conception  every 
tie  is  broken  between  Jesus  and  his  gospel,  which  is  wholly  moral  and 
spiritual,  as  well  as  between  it  and  the  Christian  consciousness.  Observe, 
further,  the  practical  consequences.  The  subtile  metaphysic  of  the 
dogma  of  the  Trinity  is  necessarily  transformed,  in  the  piety  of  the 
simple,  into  a  sort  of  mythology,  and  tritheism,  issuing  in  idolatry. 
There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this.  In  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  there 
is  a  root  of  paganism. 

On  the  other  hand,  rationalism  ends  no  less  fatally  by  making  a  law 
of  the  gospel;  monotheism  is  thus  saved,  but  God  remains  always  ex- 
ternal to  man.  By  this  view  Christianity  is  degraded  and  descends  to 
the  rank  of  a  Judaism  torn  out  of  its  national  surroundings.  Hence  a 
paganising  tendency  in  one  class,  and  a  Judaising  in  the  other — two 
contrary  tendencies.  Christian  thought  seems  to  be  powerless  to  avoid 
the  one  without  succumbing  to  the  other. 

The  way  of  escape  is  in  the  religion  of  the  Spirit;  it  enables  us  to 
surmount  both.  Far  from  opposing  and  excluding  the  part  which  Jesus 
gave  to  his  person  in  his  preaching,  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  offers  the 
sole  point  of  view  from  which  this  part  may  be  explained  and  justified. 

Many  modern  theologians,  desiring  to  reduce  to  a  system  the  gospel 
of  salvation  of  which  the  essential  elements  have  been  given  above,  speak 
of  the  "  paternal  theism  "  of  Jesus,  and  deem  that  they  have  thus  aptly 
defined  the  doctrine  which  one  must  believe  in  order  to  be  a  Christian. 
They  are  not  aware  that  in  thus  changing  the  gospel  into  a  doctrine, — 
it  matters  little  whether  excellent  or  not, — they  distort  its  essential  char- 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST        331 

acter,  and  make  it  to  pass  from  the  order  of  life  to  that  of  thought, 
from  the  order  of  the  heart  into  that  of  the  intelligence.  Jesus  would 
not  recognise  his  own  work  here.  We  admit  that  it  may  be  maintained 
in  the  schools — and  we  might  discuss  it  as  we  would  discuss  any  other 
interpretation — that  "  paternal  theism,"  as  it  is  called,  comes  at  the  end 
of  Christian  theology  as  the  best  theoretical  expression  of  the  doctrine 
brought  to  life  by  the  influence  of  Jesus ;  but  the  gospel  history  forbids 
that  this  doctrine  of  paternal  theism  should  be  set  down  as  the  premiss 
of  the  gospel  and  the  object  of  the  preaching  of  Jesus.  This  would 
make  him  a  scribe,  more  enlightened  than  the  others,  and  nothing  more. 
But  Jesus  never  taught  any  particular  doctrine  as  to  God,  sin,  the 
future  life ;  he  never  concerned  himself  to  build  up  a  system  of  theology 
which  he  could  first  teach  his  disciples  and  afterward  draw  from  it  moral 
applications  more  or  less  new.  Once  again,  his  work  was  of  another 
order. 

He  brought  in  no  new  religious  ideas ;  he  made  use  of  those  that  he 
found  at  hand,  choosing  those  best  adapted  to  his  purpose.  His  unique 
and  persistent  purpose  was  to  create  a  new  religious  life  in  the  souls 
of  his  disciples,  to  animate  them  with  his  own  faith.  Exhortations  and 
healings,  parables  and  acts  of  mercy,  are,  if  we  rightly  apprehend  them, 
only  means  for  him,  the  vehicles  of  the  divine  spark  which  he  purposed 
to  enkindle  in  the  heart. 

From  whence  came  this  spark  ?  How  could  Jesus  modify  and  renew 
the  religious  consciousness  of  his  disciples,  otherwise  than  by  imparting 
to  them  the  purely  religious  and  moral  content  of  his  own  consciousness, 
by  making  them  experience  what  he  himself  experienced — in  other  words, 
by  transforming  them  into  his  image  and  resemblance  by  the  insistent 
influence  of  his  whole  being? 

Let  us  consider  the  matter:  if  Jesus  taught  no  new  doctrine,  but 
simply  proposed  to  give  to  weary  and  burdened  souls  that  which  he  had 
in  himself,  what  else  could  he  do  than  point  them  to  his  own  person, 
saying  in  tones  till  then  unheard,  "  Come  unto  me ;  ye  shall  find  rest 


332        THE  GOSPEL  AND  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST 

for  your  souls;  follow  me,  love  me,  believe  in  me;  I  live  in  the  Father 
and  the  Father  is  in  me."  So  he  invites  them  to  enter  into  the  mystery 
of  his  own  inward  life,  the  sacred  place  where  the  Father  and  the  Son 
hold  communion,  and  reveal  to  one  another  their  mutual  love  and  faith. 
If  he  did  not  do  this,  Jesus  did  nothing  and  could  do  nothing,  since  he 
taught  us  no  new  religious  doctrine.  But  this  was  his  Messianic  voca- 
tion, understood  as  that  of  Saviour  of  his  people ;  in  this  was  the  intrinsic 
force  of  his  words,  the  efficient  power  for  salvation  which  they  bore  in 
themselves. 

Let  us  follow  out  this  historical  analysis.  Why  did  Jesus  desire 
thus  to  introduce  his  disciples  into  the  intimacy  of  his  own  conscious- 
ness? What  did  he  expect  them  to  find  there,  and  what  bring  away? 
Did  he  propose  to  dazzle  them  with  the  metaphysical  brightness  of  a 
supernatural  being,  with  the  glorious  power  of  a  God  who  had  come 
down  to  earth?  Let  us  put  away  all  these  pagan  imaginings,  more 
worthy  of  the  worshippers  on  Olympus  than  of  those  on  Tabor,  and  ab- 
solutely foreign  to  the  thought  of  the  Master  who  was  meek  and  lowly 
of  heart.  Have  you  not,  indeed,  been  struck  with  the  fact  that  this 
preaching  of  himself,  which  in  any  other  man  would  be  the  acme  of  pride 
and  folly,  never  seems  inconsistent  with  his  humility,  and  militates  little 
against  his  good  sense?  In  it  is  mingled  no  egotistic  or  vain-glorious 
preoccupation.  With  absolute  simplicity  Jesus  in  the  same  breath  de- 
clares that  God  alone  is  good,  confesses  his  own  ignorance,  submits  him- 
self to  the  Father's  will,  precisely  as  he  would  have  his  humblest  disciple 
do,  likens  himself  to  them,  makes  their  interests  his  own,  feels  that  he 
is  one  with  them  as  he  is  one  with  his  Father  who  is  in  heaven,  and 
introduces  them  into  the  intimacy  of  his  own  spiritual  life,  in  order  that 
they  may  draw  therefrom  a  religious  consciousness  like  his  own,  that 
they  like  him  may  enter  into  filial  relations  with  the  Father  who  is  also 
their  Father,  in  order  to  become  religiously  like  him,  and  be  his  brethren, 
his  friends,  his  family.  In  other  words,  it  is  his  will  that  in  him,  in 
heart  communion  with  him,  they  may  find  the  Father.  Thus  he  calls 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST        333 

them  to  himself  only  that  he  may  lead  them  to  God,  in  order  that  then, 
more  than  ever,  God,  and  God  alone,  may  be  the  supreme  object  of  their 
faith  and  love. 

Thus  there  are  not  two  things  in  the  gospel,  a  moral  doctrine  and 
a  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Jesus  set  over  against  and 
outside  of  it.  The  dignity  of  the  person  of  Jesus  is  not  his  metaphysi- 
cal essence,  but  the  purely  moral  and  religious  content  of  his  conscious- 
ness. His  person  is  the  incarnation,  the  living  expression,  of  the  gospel. 
From  his  person  the  gospel  receives  its  creative  virtue;  it  enters  the 
world  as  a  historic  potency,  a  leaven  of  renovation  and  of  life.  The 
religious  consciousness  of  Christ,  far  from  being  an  obstacle  to  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Spirit,  is  the  elect  point  in  the  world,  the  holy  place,  from 
which  this  religion,  like  the  river  that  flowed  forth  from  the  temple, 
gushes  forth  a  living  spring  to  water  all  future  generations. 

To  believe  in  Christ,  to  be  united  to  him  by  the  influence  of  his 
word  and  work,  is  in  fact  nothing  else  than  to  believe  the  gospel,  or  more 
properly  speaking,  to  receive  it  as  a  living  principle  and  realise  it  in 
ourselves.  This  is  not  a  new  condition  of  salvation  added  to  that  which 
Jesus  himself  had  earlier  laid  down,  namely,  the  return  to  God  by  faith. 
The  Master  freely  admitted  that  one  might  be  saved  without  personally 
confessing  his  name.  The  important  point  was  not  to  proclaim  and 
glorify  him  as  Lord,  but  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father.  And  on  the  other 
hand  he  declared  that  all  manner  of  sins  could  be  forgiven  men,  even 
evil  speaking  against  the  Son  of  man.  And  if  this  declaration  is  appli- 
cable to  those  who  blaspheme  him,  so  much  the  more  must  it  apply  to 
those  who  know  him  not.1 

The  only  sin  which  cannot  obtain  pardon  is  the  sin  "  against  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  that  is,  persistent  contempt  and  violation  of  the  witness 
of  God  in  the  consciousness.  Is  not  this  the  authentication  of  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Spirit,  in  which  only  man  himself  can  entirely  save  or  lose 
himself?  Yes,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life.  But 
if  to  love  Jesus  Christ  and  be  joined  to  him  is  to  follow  the  way  of  truth 

»Matt  xii.  39;  Luke  xiL  10. 


V 


334       THE  GOSPEL  AND  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST 

and  life,  it  is  equally  true  that  to  love  truth  above  all  other  things,  to 
dedicate  one's  self  to  it  and  rest  one's  hope  in  it,  is  still  one  way  of  fol- 
lowing Jesus,  of  walking  in  his  footsteps  and  essentially  finding  him, 
even  though  one  misapprehends  and  stands  aloof  from  him.  Such 
ignorance  and  misconception  are  only  for  a  time,  and  when  the  veil  is 
drawn  away,  when  broad  day  succeeds  to  the  twilight  of  the  present 
hour,  those  who  repulsed  Christ  because  they  knew  him  not  will  perceive 
that  in  their  pursuit  of  truth  they  were  obeying  the  guidance  of  his 
Spirit,  all  unknown  to  themselves. 

Nevertheless  it  is  evident  why  in  the  normal  course  of  things  the 
person  of  Christ  is  the  essential  factor  in  the  Christian  religion,  and  why 
Christianity  cannot  be  severed  from  him  without  death.  That  which 
makes  us  Christians  is  not  the  letter  of  the  gospel,  it  is  the  Spirit  of 
Christ.  But  the  Spirit  is  the  emanation  of  his  consciousness.  Enter- 
ing into  ours  it  transforms  it  from  the  consciousness  of  a  wretched  and 
sinful  man  into  the  consciousness  of  a  child  of  the  Father.  This  is  why 
the  heart  of  every  Christian  is  bound  to  Jesus  Christ  and  must  ever  be 
so  bound ;  bound  to  the  story  of  his  outward  life  as  the  type  of  life  which 
it  is  his  task  to  reproduce,  bound  to  his  person  as  the  source  of  holy 
inspiration,  without  which  he  can  do  nothing.  The  full  and  normal  de- 
velopment of  the  Christian  consciousness  can  take  place  only  under  the 
influence  of  Christ.  He  is  the  vine  whose  sap  flows  into  the  branches. 
His  consciousness  is  the  generating  cell  whence  proceed  all  other  like 
cells  of  that  social  organism  which  Paul  calls  his  body,  and  of  which 
his  Spirit  is  the  common,  sovereign  soul. 

Then  we  perceive  the  sense  in  which  Christ  is  the  mediator.  Not  in 
the  hierarchical  sense  in  which  Catholics  have  instituted  the  mediation 
of  the  Virgin  Mary  and  the  saints ;  not  in  the  sense  that  we  have  in  him 
a  secondary  God,  more  human,  and  more  accessible  to  our  prayers  and 
our  complaints.  We  do  not  address  ourselves  to  Jesus  by  way  of  dis- 
pensing ourselves  from  going  to  the  Father.  Far  from  this,  we  go  to 
Christ  and  abide  in  him,  precisely  that  we  may  find  the  Father.  We 


FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY  335 

abide  in  him  that  his  filial  consciousness  may  become  our  own,  that  his 
Spirit  may  become  our  Spirit,  and  that  God  may  dwell  immediately 
in  us  as  he  dwelt  in  him.  Nothing  in  all  this  carries  us  outside  of  the 
religion  of  the  Spirit ;  on  the  contrary  it  is  its  seal  and  confirmation. 

IV 

Faith,  Belief,  and  Theology 

IN  all  that  has  preceded  I  have  carefully  distinguished  between  faith 
and  belief,  reserving  the  first  expression  for  that  act  of  heart  and  will — 
an  essentially  moral  act — whereby  man  accepts  the  gift  of  God  and  his 
forgiveness,  and  consecrates  himself  to  him;  and  applying  the  second 
to  that  intellectual  act  by  which  the  mind  gives  its  consent  to  a  historic 
fact  and  to  a  doctrine.  This  distinction  has  become  necessary  in  our 
day  l  for  everyone  who  seeks  to  apprehend  the  true  character  of  the 
gospel  of  salvation,  and  understand  in  what  way  it  saves  us.  That 
which  saves  the  soul  is  faith,  not  belief.  God  demands  the  heart  of 
man,  because  the  heart  once  gained  and  changed  all  the  rest  follows, 
while  the  gift  of  all  the  rest  without  the  heart  is  only  a  seeming,  and 
leaves  the  man  in  his  first  estate. 

Is  this  to  say  that  psychologically  faith  can  ever  be  found  without 
some  belief,  the  sentiment  without  the  idea,  and  that  doctrine  is  a  matter 
of  indifference  to  piety?  Both  propositions  are  absurd,  and  can  never 
occur  to  a  reasonable  mind.  Every  psychical  act  tends  to  become  con- 
scient,  and  by  this  very  fact  to  produce  a  representative  and  suggestive 
image,  an  idea,  capable  not  only  of  perpetuating  the  memory  of  the 
act,  but  also  of  reproducing  it.  But  this  organic  connection  of  the 
moral  with  the  intellectual  element  in  the  religious  act  of  faith  and 
conversion  can  never  hinder  our  perceiving  the  specific  nature  of  each, 
or  observing  that  whatever  in  faith  is  of  the  intellectual  order  is  not 
that  in  which  its  saving  virtue  consists ;  both  because  intellectual  opera- 
tions are  governed  by  other  laws  than  those  which  rule  the  moral  will, 

'Appendix  XCIII. 


336  FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY 

and  because  the  gift  of  God  in  the  gospel,  being  a  moral  act  of  God, 
can  in  no  otherwise  be  received  or  even  comprehended,  but  by  a  corre- 
sponding moral  act  in  man. 

The  moral  revelation  of  God  is  accompanied  by  a  peculiar  evidence, 
which  to  be  apprehended  needs  only  a  pure  heart  and  an  upright  will. 
Faith  addresses  itself  to  verities  of  this  order.  It  implicates  the  moral 
activity  of  the  spirit.  Its  object  is  always  a  moral  or  religious  reality 
immediately  manifest  to  consciousness,  without  other  demonstration  than 
the  inward  demonstration  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  is  why  the  true 
beginning  of  faith  is  a  change  effected  in  the  moral  disposition  of  the 
soul,  and  its  end  entire  and  final  consecration  to  the  will  of  God.  No 
doubt  faith  presupposes  that  the  good  news  has  been  heard,  but  it  is 
born  only  of  the  witness  of  God  within  us. 

Of  a  different  nature  is  the  act  by  which  the  mind  holds  a  history 
or  a  doctrine  as  true  upon  the  authority  of  a  tradition,  a  witness,  or  any 
tribunal  soever.  The  certitude  of  such  a  belief  is  neither  of  the  same 
species  nor  in  the  same  degree  as  the  certitude  of  faith.  Belief  and 
faith  are  neither  destroyed  nor  restored  by  the  same  causes.  Nothing 
but  sin,  frivolity  of  heart,  the  death  of  the  conscience,  can  very  gravely 
disturb  the  essential  relations  between  the  soul  and  its  ideal  law,  the 
inward  principle  of  its  life,  that  is  to  say,  its  God.  Though  enfeebled 
or  extinct,  faith  can  always  be  born  again  in  self -recollection,  repentance, 
and  prayer.  On  the  contrary,  a  belief  once  overthrown  by  criticism 
can  never  again  be  built  up.  Doubt  corrodes  it  until  a  new  conception 
of  things  finally  does  away  with  it  and  gives  its  place  to  another.  The 
verbal  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  demoniac  possession,  the  Mosaic  origin 
of  the  Pentateuch,  were  once  beliefs ;  but  now  they  have  vanished  away. 
Little  by  little  belief,  first  erected  into  dogma,  becomes  attenuated  into 
an  opinion,  and  finally  gives  way  to  something  entirely  different.  This 
is  the  inevitable  law  of  the  historic  evolution  of  human  ideas.  Every 
religious  and  moral  faith  clothes  itself  in  an  intellectual  form  as  a  means 
of  self -manifestation  and  propagation.  But  every  such  intellectual 


FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY  337 

form  is  fatally  inadequate  to  its  object  and  to  that  extent  simply  sym- 
bolical ;  with  the  process  of  time  it  undergoes  various  interpretations  or 
becomes  profoundly  modified.  In  an  active  and  vital  religion  the  warp 
remains  the  same,  but  the  tissue  is  changed  by  the  continual  addition  of 
new  threads  and  the  dropping  out  of  old,  worn-out,  and  decaying  ele- 
ments. This  is  why  we  have  a  history  of  dogma.  The  history  of  the 
dogmas  of  expiation  and  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  particularly 
instructive. 

The  effect  of  this  mobility  of  the  forms  of  belief  is  to  constrain 
faith — which  in  the  beginning  appeared  to  be  one  with  belief — to  take 
clearer  cognisance  of  its  essential  principle  and  native  independence.  In 
the  Old  Testament  faith  was  bound  up  with  legal  observances.  In  St. 
Paul  it  works  free  from  the  Mosaic  law,  the  entire  ritual  part  of  which 
is  struck  with  death.  In  Luther  it  asserts  its  independence  of  the  com- 
mandments of  the  Church.  Later  Protestant  orthodoxy  sought  to  hold 
it  in  bondage  to  a  certain  number  of  dogmas.  In  our  days,  it  is  still 
carrying  on  the  struggle,  and  is  gradually  triumphing  by  establishing 
a  clear  distinction  between  itself  and  all  forms  of  belief. 

The  more  we  insist  upon  this  capital  distinction  the  more  essential 
it  is  to  establish  the  organic  connection  between  doctrine  and  faith,  their 
vital  solidarity.  In  the  domain  of  the  soul's  life  all  things  are  inter- 
linked and  interdependent,  there  is  an  uninterrupted  series  of  mutual 
actions  and  reactions  of  all  its  elements.  Even  a  momentary  interrup- 
tion is  disease;  long  continued  it  is  death.  If  faith  gives  birth  to  doc- 
trine, doctrine  in  its  turn  may  produce  faith,  and  in  every  case  it  either 
sustains  faith  or  paralyses  it.  No  feeling  is  sterile  for  thought;  no 
thought  is  sterile  in  the  life  of  the  heart.  Disastrous  consequences  as 
surely  flow  from  error  as  luminous  inspiration  from  the  good  willed 
and  performed.  Life  comes  before  thought,  religion  before  theology; 
but  the  labour  of  thought  either  enriches  or  impoverishes  life,  and  the- 
ology either  serves  or  compromises  religion.  Hence  the  importance 
of  a  sound  and  right  theology. 


338  FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY 

Theology  is  spontaneously  born  of  faith  as  philosophy  of  experience. 
Its  character  and  function  are  twofold;  it  is  at  the  same  time  critical 
and  positive. 

Being  critical  it  aids  the  Christian  consciousness  of  any  given  time 
in  getting  a  grasp  of  its  principle,  in  apprehending  it  in  its  original 
native  purity,  in  disengaging  it  from  inconsistencies  and  errors  which, 
however  incessantly  it  may  war  against  them,  continually  spring  up 
again  and  threaten  to  stifle  it. 

On  the  one  hand  are  paganism  and  Judaism,  affecting  the  very 
essence  of  the  Christian  spirit;  and  on  the  other  traditionalism,  which 
steals  away  its  liberty,  and  Independency,  which,  cutting  it  off  at  the 
roots,  checks  the  flow  of  its  sap. 

The  pagan  tendency  finds  its  most  obvious  and  crudest  expression 
in  Catholicism,  in  the  constitution  of  its  priestly  hierarchy,  in  the  opus 
operatum  of  its  sacraments,  and  all  the  superstitious  practices  with 
which  Catholic  devotion  persists  in  overlaying  itself.  But  it  would  be 
as  superficial  as  fallacious  to  find  it  only  in  these.  The  essence  of  pagan 
error  is  the  confining  of  the  activity  of  God  to  an  outward  form,  and 
submerging  of  spirit  in  matter.  There  is  a  taint  of  paganism  in  every 
tendency  to  materialise  and  localise  religion,  to  restrain  the  freedom  of 
the  Spirit  of  God,  to  leave  out  of  view  its  transcendence  over  all  con- 
tingent creatures  and  institutions  of  history.  There  is  something  pagan 
in  indifference  to  the  sanctity  of  the  Christian  ideal,  in  an  emasculated 
consciousness  of  sin  and  of  human  responsibility  such  as  is  but  too  com- 
mon in  our  days.  There  is  something  pagan  even  in  our  so-called  reli- 
gious revivals,  under  whatever  name  of  literary  Christianity,  neo-Chris- 
tianity,  religion  of  human  suffering,  and  other  forms  of  mysticism,  in 
which  adoration  becomes  a  mere  aesthetic  luxury.  Whenever  piety  throws 
overboard  the  ballast  of  moral  consciousness  it  gets  lost  in  the  fog,  and 
evaporates  into  poetry. 

Over  against  this  error  stands  the  Jewish  error  of  a  legalistic  and 
Pharisaic  tendency.  In  it  the  outward  authority  of  the  letter  is  put  in 


FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY  339 

the  place  of  the  inward  authority  of  the  Spirit.  It  conceives  of  reli- 
gion and  practises  it  as  a  contract,  God  and  man  apart  from  one  another, 
and  each  making  his  conditions.  It  not  only  cuts  off  Christian  mys- 
ticism at  the  root,  but  puts  the  law  in  the  place  of  grace,  and  salvation 
by  works  in  the  place  of  salvation  by  faith.  Once  admit  into  the  Chris- 
tian Church  this  tendency  to  deny  the  purely  religious  and  moral  notion 
of  faith,  and  add  to  the  unique  condition  of  a  trustful  return  to  the 
Father  any  external  condition  whatever,  whether  the  practice  of  a  form 
of  devotion  or  the  profession  of  a  traditional  belief,  and  the  very  prin- 
ciple of  Christianity  is  impaired  or  modified,  being  tainted  with  Phar- 
isaism. 

Theology  may  guard  itself  against  the  pagan  error  by  critical  sym- 
bolism, which,  recognising  the  historic  necessity  of  rites  and  formulas, 
is  able  always  to  discern  in  them  the  ideal  principle  of  the  religion  of 
spirit  and  truth,  and  to  make  it  act  upon  them  as  a  leaven  of  reform, 
of  progress,  of  continual  ascent  toward  eternal  truth.  Against  the 
Jewish  error  Christian  thought  may  defend  itself  by  fideism,  that  is,  by 
an  ever  stricter  adhesion  to  the  primitive  content  of  the  gospel  of  sal- 
vation by  faith  alone.  The  religion  of  the  Spirit  embodies  the  living 
practical  synthesis  of  critical  symbolism  and  fideism,  that  is,  of  the  moral 
content  and  the  free  character  of  Christian  inspiration.1 

Two  other  tendencies  are  opposed  to  the  religion  of  the  Spirit :  they 
are  simply  disguised  daughters  of  those  already  pointed  out.  One  is 
traditionalism,  into  which  the  Roman  Church  is  gradually  stiffening; 
the  other  is  independency,  or  the  false  individualism  by  which  the  Prot- 
estant churches  are  crumbling  to  pieces,  their  activity  evaporating  and 
becoming  socially  sterile.  When  the  past  in  all  its  periods  and  all  forms 
of  its  development  is  apotheosised  it  is  at  once  set  apart  from  criticism 

1  Fidtisme,  for  which  we  have  no  English  word,  is  the  word  adopted  by  Dean  Saba- 
tier  and  his  school  (and  especially  expounded  by  his  colleague  Prof.  Meiiegoz),  as  the 
term  for  the  "religion  of  the  Spirit."  See  Prof.  G.  B.  Stevens,  of  Yale,  in  the 
Hibbert  Magazine  for  April,  1903,  on  "  Auguste  Sabatier,  and  the  Paris  School  of 
Theology."— Trow. 


340  FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY 

and  consequently  from  every  serious  attempt  at  reform;  its  necessary 
progress  is  checked.  In  vain  is  the  attempt  made  to-day,  following 
Moehler  and  Newman,  to  introduce  the  idea  of  evolution  into  Catholic 
tradition ;  it  is  only  a  seeming.  Tradition,  having  been  declared  forever 
infallible,  has  become  a  solid  body,  no  part  of  which  can  be  denied  or 
given  up,  and  its  ever-increasing  weight  must  fatally  stifle  every  new 
initiative  of  the  Christian  spirit.  Acting  according  to  the  law  of 
affinities,  the  superstitions  of  the  past  cannot  but  favour  the  growth 
of  new  superstitions  in  the  future.  There  is  no  other  explanation  of 
the  rapid  decline  down  which  Roman  Catholicism  has  for  two  centuries 
been  hastening.  The  same  tendency  would  bring  about  the  same  results 
in  Protestantism  itself,  if  ever  it  should  succeed  (as  is  happily  impos- 
sible) in  constituting  itself  a  system  of  authority.  The  sterility  of  all 
reactionary  Protestant  movements  is  proof  and  warning  of  this. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Protestantism  suffers  from  the  opposite  ill. 
Catholicism  fails  to  recognise  the  valid  rights  of  the  Christian  conscience. 
Protestant  individualism  too  often  overlooks  a  no  less  important  fact 
of  another  order — the  organic  bond  between  the  individual  and  the  spe- 
cies, the  child  and  the  family,  the  man  and  society.  Neither  individual 
life  nor  individual  thought  enjoys  absolute  plenitude.  It  is  an  error 
to  suppose  that  either  is  independent  and  sufficient  to  itself.  There  is 
profound  truth  in  the  popular  adage  "  One  is  always  somebody's  child." 
Physiology  maintains  it,  history  proves  it.  The  Protestant  Christian 
who  isolates  himself,  believing  that  he  can  draw  all  religious  truth  from 
his  Bible  or  his  individual  inspiration,  lives  and  thinks  in  unreality. 
His  intellectual  obstinacy  springs  from  ignorance  and  keeps  him  in  it. 
We  have  need  one  of  another,  quite  as  much  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  moral  life  as  of  material  existence.  An  individual  experience  is  only 
a  part  of  the  total  experience  of  humanity,  and  apart  from  this  totality 
it  runs  the  risk  either  of  exaggerating  its  own  value  or  of  being  swal- 
lowed up  in  senseless  pride  or  dejected  scepticism.  This  is  why  the 
testimony  of  others,  communion  with  the  brethren,  are  necessary  to  us. 


FAITH,  BELIEF,  AND  THEOLOGY  341 

Only  in  this  social  solidarity  can  the  Christian  life  blossom  out,  and  find 
at  once  health  and  security.  An  unsocial  Christianity  is  a  stunted  and 
sterile  Christianity. 

The  religion  of  the  Spirit,  then,  must  reconcile  all  that  is  true  in 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant  principles,  by  stripping  both  of  whatever 
may  be  false  and  narrow  in  them.  It  can  accomplish  this  task  only  by 
the  aid  of  history  and  psychology,  nursing  mothers  of  a  sound  theology. 
The  psychology  of  the  Christian  consciousness  confirms  it  in  the  senti- 
ment of  its  independence  and  inherent  value.  History  gives  it  the  sense 
of  continuity  in  the  religious  and  moral  development  of  the  entire  human 
race.  Faith,  that  deepest  root  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit,  by  its  own 
power  creates  two  intuitions :  that  of  liberty,  by  which  the  soul  possesses 
and  asserts  itself,  and  that  of  love,  by  which  it  gives  itself  to  the  whole 
creation  and  enters  into  communion  with  it.  The  first  gathers  up  all 
the  powers  of  the  soul  and  concentrates  them  upon  itself,  the  other  car- 
ries it  out  of  itself,  and  pours  it  forth  upon  the  world.  The  first  makes 
it  strong  to  resist  all  forms  of  tyranny ;  the  other  makes  it  capable  of 
all  sacrifices  and  disposed  to  all  loyal  and  legitimate  concessions.  The 
former  maintains  the  individual  life,  the  latter  cements  the  life  of  society. 
To  faith  all  things  are  possible;  to  love  all  are  easy.  The  religion  of 
the  Spirit  is  compounded  of  faith  and  love.  To  develop  and  build  up 
these  two  necessary  qualities  should  be  the  task  of  theology. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

SCIENTIFIC  THEOLOGY:  ITS  MATTER  AND  METHOD 

I 
The  Spirit  of  Piety  and  the  Scientific  Spirit 

A  RELIGION  of  authority  gives  rise  to  a  scholastic  theology ;  by  the  same 
necessity  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  seeks  to  find  form  and  expression  in 
a  theology  which  is  increasingly  scientific.  The  autonomy  of  thought 
corresponds  to  the  autonomy  of  the  religious  consciousness.  Each  in- 
evitably demands  the  other. 

In  bringing  criticism  to  bear  upon  the  historic  forms  of  the  past, 
scientific  theology  forces  religion  to  throw  off  those  foreign  elements 
which  in  the  course  of  its  evolution  it  has  borrowed,  and  to  assert  itself 
as  in  essence  purely  religious  and  moral.  This  done,  it  is  the  religion 
of  the  Spirit.  And  on  the  other  hand  a  religion  thus  pure  imposjes  no 
external  bond  upon  thought.  Solely  by  moral  obligation  it  binds  and 
consecrates  thought  to  the  indefatigable  and  disinterested  search  for 
truth.  To  seek  for  truth  by  the  loyal  exercise  of  the  intelligence,  and 
pursue  after  holiness  by  the  energy  of  an  upright  will  and  a  purified 
heart,  appear  henceforth  as  the  two  essential  and  parallel  functions  of 
the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  If  truth  is  the  divine  sister  of  righteousness 
there  is  equal  piety  in  the  labour  which  leads  to  either,  or  rather  both 
suppose  the  same  moral  effort. 

Without  the  slightest  doubt,  the  effort  to  reconcile  the  doctrines  of 
authority  with  modern  science,  which  knows  no  other  method  than  that 
of  observation  and  experience,  is  as  the  attempt  to  weld  together  a  clod 
of  clay  and  an  iron  bar.  This  is  why  all  past  compromises  and  at- 
tempted conciliations  have  so  miserably  ended  in  shipwreck.  Quite 

342 


SPIRIT  OF  PIETY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT          343 

other  is  the  profound  affinity  between  religious  and  scientific  inspira- 
tion. They  spring  from  the  same  source,  they  tend  to  the  same  end, 
and  both  manifest  the  same  life  of  the  Spirit.  Both  are  born  of  a  reli- 
gious love  of  truth.  The  spirit  of  piety  adores  the  truth,  even  when 
it  does  not  recognise  it ;  the  scientific  spirit  perhaps  seeks  for  truth  with- 
out adoring  it,  but  both  love  it  above  all  else,  and  devote  themselves  to 
it  without  reserve.  They  meet  and  hold  communion  together  in  the  reli- 
gion of  the  truth. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  forget  professional  scholars  and  bigots,  their 
hatreds,  inconsistencies,  and  absurdities,  the  theology  of  the  former  and 
the  pretentious  oracles  of  the  others.  The  question  that  occupies  us, 
let  us  again  repeat,  is  neither  concrete  religion  nor  established  science, 
but  the  intellectual  effort  which  creates  science  and  the  profound  senti- 
ment which  gives  birth  to  religion,  independently  of  their  more  or  less 
striking  manifestations  in  everyday  life.  Can  we  not  feel  that  in  its 
ideal  aspiration,  in  the  heroic  labour  which  it  undergoes,  the  sacrifices 
it  inspires,  the  triumphs  it  achieves,  and  especially  in  the  humility  with 
which,  after  each  victory,  genius  bows  before  the  eternal  mystery,  the 
task  of  human  science  is  holy,  that  it  is  impious  to  speak  evil  of  it,  and 
that  it  ascends  from  our  poor  earth  as  a  magnificent  homage  to  the  God 
of  truth? 

Nothing  is  more  striking  nor  more  touching  than  the  kind  of  piety 
with  which  science  inspires  all  great  men  of  learning :  Kepler,  Descartes, 
Pascal,  Newton,  Pasteur.  See  their  awe  inspired  by  each  discovery; 
follow  Littre  to  the  last  headland  of  positive  science.  Why  are  all  of 
them  plunged  in  solemn  contemplation?  What  mysterious  power  bows 
them  before  the  ultimate,  and  changes  their  ardent  and  victorious  re- 
search into  adoration? 

From  a  conquered  truth,  as  from  an  accomplished  duty  or  sacrifice, 
some  mysterious  perfume  exhales,  which  makes  fragrant  the  whole  soul 
life,  and  gives  it  over  to  humility  and  joy. 

In  our  days  much  has  been  said  of  the  religion  of  science ;  it  has  even 


344  SPIRIT  OF  PIETY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT 
been  claimed  that  this  religion  would  do  away  with  all  others  and  reign 
in  their  place.  This  is  not  true,  first,  because  science  is  no  more  the 
whole  of  life  than  thought  is  the  whole  soul,  and  again,  because  those 
who  speak  thus  of  science  speak  in  the  most  unreligious  way  possible. 
None  the  less  is  it  true  that  the  object  of  science  is  eminently  religious, 
and  that  the  pursuit  of  science  is  an  integral  part  of  religion.  The 
religion  of  science  is  no  more  safe  from  superstition  and  fanaticism  than 
any  other  religion,  and  easily  turns  to  idolatry.  But  even  in  idolatry 
religion  forces  itself  into  recognition.  The  true  religion  of  science  is 
not  that  which  deifies  ephemeral  results  or  material  power,  but  that  which 
holds  research  itself  to  be  holy,  the  steady  ascent  of  the  spirit  toward  the 
larger  light. 

While  learned  men  who  fail  to  recognise  the  religious  character  of 
science  narrow  and  restrict  the  bounds  of  their  horizon,  religious  men 
who  fear  science  and  will  have  none  of  it  no  less  strike  a  mortal  blow 
at  their  own  faith.  They  deliberately  shut  themselves  up  in  a  dark 
prison,  where  their  piety,  deprived  of  light  and  air,  must  inevitably  waste 
away  and  die. 

Why  then  should  we  permit  ourselves  to  be  shut  up  to  the  alterna- 
tive of  choosing  between  an  irreligious  science  and  an  ignorant  or  unin- 
telligent religion?  So  false  a  dilemma  is  created  only  by  fanaticism; 
the  fanaticism  of  those  who  proscribe  religion  in  the  name  of  science, 
and  that  of  those  who  anathematise  free  research  in  the  name  of  religion. 
It  disappears  at  once  before  a  mind  free  from  passion  and  prejudice, 
sincerely  resolved  ever  to  bring  more  piety  to  its  scientific  work  and  more 
science  to  its  piety.  The  struggle  between  these  two  powers  of  the  soul, 
neither  of  which  can  be  coerced,  makes  the  agony  of  the  individual  soul 
and  the  woe  of  society.  Their  reconciliation  will  be  the  peace  and  salva- 
tion of  both. 

Science  in  piety  is  scientific  theology. 


HOW   THEOLOGY   MAY   BECOME   SCIENTIFIC      345 

II 

Conditions  on  which  Theology  May  Become  Scientific 

THE  time  has  gone  by  when  theology,  as  a  Roman  matron  her  hand- 
maidens, held  all  other  mental  disciplines  under  its  sovereign  sway. 
That  time  will  never  return  unless  humanity,  decrepit  and  senile,  falls 
into  a  second  childhood.  To-day  the  situation  is  entirely  reversed, 
The  present  question  for  theology  is  whether  it  may  achieve  a  place  in 
the  consecrated  choir  of  modern  sciences,  or  whether  it  will  be  shut  out 
for  want  of  any  common  interest  with  them. 

The  scientific  consciousness  of  our  time  recognises,  in  fact,  no  spe- 
cifically sacred  science,  no  science  fallen  from  heaven  and  not  the  fruit 
of  man's  travail  of  mind.  From  its  point  of  view  the  most  transcendent 
theology,  however  saturated  with  mystery,  is  still  a  human  thing.  To 
take  refuge  behind  a  supernatural  authority,  that  it  may  thus  impose 
itself  from  without  upon  the  mind,  is  in  its  opinion  nothing  other  than 
gratuitously  to  cut  itself  off  from  all  communion  with  the  scientific 
labour  of  modern  times.  That  which  was  once  the  dread  privilege  of 
theology  has  to-day  become  its  fatal  infirmity.  The  question  is  no 
longer  of  theology  being  the  queen  of  the  other  sciences,  but  whether 
they  will  accept  her  as  their  sister. 

She  can  be  so  accepted  only  on  condition  of  herself  becoming  a 
science,  distinct  from  the  others  of  course,  as  to  subject,  but  similar  to 
them  and  of  like  nature  with  them  as  to  method. 

Two  conditions  are  necessary  to  the  constitution  of  a  science :  in  the 
first  place  it  must  be  competent  to  set  apart  from  the  wide  domain  of 
the  real  a  well-defined  field,  large  or  small,  which  properly  belongs  to 
itself,  that  is,  it  must  have  a  positive  and  definite  object  of  study;  in 
the  second  place,  in  its  mode  of  study  it  must  give  up  the  old  method 
of  authority  and  own  allegiance  to  the  method  of  observation  and  experi- 
ment. Thus  one  after  the  other  all  modern  sciences  have  thrown  off  the 
yoke  of  time-honoured  authority  and  constituted  themselves  anew. 


346        HOW  THEOLOGY  MAY  BECOME  SCIENTIFIC 

Galileo,  Bacon,  Descartes,  were  the  great  initiators  of  the  new  era.  The- 
ology must  undergo  a  like  revolution  if  it  will  take  its  place  as  a  factor 
in  the  encyclopaedic  organism  of  human  sciences. 

The  two  conditions  just  stated  are  inseparable  and  mutually  self- 
originating.  It  is  because  Catholic  theology,  far  from  renouncing  the 
method  of  authority,  has  become  more  than  ever  subject  to  it,  that  it  is 
unable  to  define  its  particular  object.  What  is  a  summa  theologicaf 
If  one  subtracts  from  it  that  which  properly  belongs  to  rational  philos- 
ophy, there  is  nothing  left  but  an  inorganic  series  of  commentaries, 
classified  by  rubric,  upon  mysteries  which  are  declared  inaccessible  alike 
to  reason  and  human  experience ;  so  that  we  arrive  at  the  singular  and 
self -contradictory  definition  of  a  science  whose  object  is  those  things 
which  cannot  be  known.  Whence  it  results  that  the  ojbject  of  theological 
science  thus  conceived  is  reduced  to  formulas  that  must  be  correctly  re- 
peated and  obstinately  defended,  but  which  rest  upon  an  obscure 
vacuum,  an  unknowable  reality,  whose  purely  verbal  definition  it  is  im- 
possible to  verify.  How  can  such  formulas  be  established  except  by  the 
method  of  authority?  Thus  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  rests  upon  the 
authority  of  the  bishops  of  Nicsea  and  Constantinople,  who  formulated 
it,  and  in  the  scientific  order  it  has  precisely  the  weight  of  the  scientific 
competency  of  its  authors.  If  it  is  canonised  and  declared  intangible 
and  indisputable,  it  is  so  by  an  authority  of  the  same  order  as  that  which 
to-day  in  France  forbids  the  discussion  of  the  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment. It  is  politics ;  it  is  not  science. 

This  is  why  the  Catholic  church  is  obliged  to  have  a  science  apart, 
separate  universities,  just  as  it  separates  the  clergy  from  the  laity  and 
religious  society  from  civil.  The  method  of  authority  so  entirely  iso- 
lates Catholic  theology  from  the  general  scientific  movement  that  it  is 
futile  to  enter  into  discussion  with  it,  and  generally  it  is  set  aside  by 
mere  preterition. 

Entirely  different  is  the  history  of  Protestant  theology.  Finding  a 
place  in  national  universities  by  the  same  title  as  other  humane  disci- 


HOW  THEOLOGY  MAY  BECOME  SCIENTIFIC        347 

plines,  it  has  necessarily  followed  their  progressive  evolution,  and  like 
them  has  gradually  freed  itself  from  the  method  of  authority,  and  taken 
possession  of  the  restricted  but  positive  domain  which  is  its  own. 
Schleiermacher,  who  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  was  the  ini- 
tiator of  the  new  theology,  assigned  to  it  the  religious  phenomenon  as  its 
object  of  study;  and  more  especially  the  Christian  phenomenon,  which 
is  only  a  higher  form  of  the  other ;  at  the  same  time  he  laid  upon  it  the 
method  of  psychological  and  historical  observation.  Religious  facts,  in- 
deed, belong  to  the  domain  of  consciousness;  they  can  be  grasped,  veri- 
fied, and  described  only  by  the  observation  of  the  religious  psychologist 
or  by  the  historic  exegesis  of  documents  in  which  the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  the  past  has  left  its  imprint.  This  is  why  the  accurate  delimita- 
tion of  the  object  of  theology  brings  in  its  train  the  substitution  of  the 
method  of  observation  and  experiment  for  the  old  method  of  authority. 
One  had  lost  all  the  ground  that  the  other  is  gaining,  and  the  measure 
of  the  progress  of  the  new  method  during  the  century  is  the  measure 
of  the  scientific  character  of  the  new  theology. 

But  it  will  still  be  long  before  the  habits  of  the  method  of  authority 
entirely  disappear  from  theology.  Far  too  frequently  in  discussions 
between  theologians  we  meet  forms  of  reasoning  which  bear  its  indelible 
mark.  Such  are  the  arguments  drawn  from  practical  utility,  or  reli- 
gious fear.  We  cite  two  examples. 

The  difficulties  raised  by  the  question  of  the  authenticity  of  St. 
John's  Gospel  are  well  known.  It  is  a  problem  of  literary  history,  and 
should  be  discussed  solely  according  to  the  strict  method  elsewhere  used 
by  literary  history.  How  many  religious  critics  have  thought  to  sup- 
plement the  notorious  insufficiency  of  the  traditional  proofs  by  insisting 
that  if  this  gospel  is  not  the  immediate  work  of  the  apostle,  the  son 
of  Zebedee,  the  Christian  religion  is  undermined!  And  it  is  by  virtue 
of  such  reasoning  that  they  hope  to  make  the  apostolicity  of  this  writing 
an  article  of  faith  for  the  Christian  conscience!  It  is  almost  as  if  a 
chemist  should  undertake  to  establish  a  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  quinine 


348         HOW  THEOLOGY  MAY  BECOME  SCIENTIFIC 

upon  the  fact  that  the  doctors  find  it  useful  for  the  cure  of  fever. 
Science  demands  greater  candour.  There  are  in  history  certain  things 
which  one  should  be  in  a  condition  to  affirm;  there  are  also  legendary 
things  which  must  be  recognised  as  such,  and  doubtful  matters  concern- 
ing which  one  must  be  willing  to  be  in  doubt  until  new  light  shines.  We 
may  indeed  bring  down  the  scales  by  throwing  in  some  extrinsic  matter, 
but  that  both  falsifies  the  weight  and  shows  a  lack  of  scientific  probity. 
If  it  is  not  historically  demonstrated  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  by  the 
Apostle  John,  no  extra-historical  reasoning  will  make  it  so. 

Another  example:  A  certain  school  of  theology  which  considers 
itself  very  much  emancipated  hopes  to  deduce  the  dogma  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ  from  the  fact  of  his  pre-existence,  although  there  is  no  neces- 
sary connection  between  the  notions  of  pre-existence  and  divinity,  as  is 
proved  by  Origen's  theory  of  the  pre-existence  of  human  souls.  And 
to  command  acceptance  of  the  fact  of  the  pre-existence  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  they  add,  as  was  urged  concerning  the  Gospel  of  St.  John, 
that  this  is  the  keystone  of  the  arch  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  that 
if  it  should  be  lost  to  dogmatics,  the  Christian  faith  would  go  with  it. 
Thus  they  cut  short  the  scientific  study  of  the  progressive  formation 
and  development  of  the  notion  of  pre-existence  among  the  Jews  and  early 
Christians,  and  by  a  sort  of  authoritative  fiat  they  give  the  lie  to  the 
scientific  character  of  theology.  Theology  cannot  be  a  true  science 
until  it  has  been  freed  from  these  old  tatters  of  a  method  which  it  pro- 
fesses to  have  abandoned. 

The  proper  object  of  theology  is  the  study  of  the  religious  phenom- 
enon in  general  and  the  Christian  phenomenon  in  particular ;  this  is  that 
section  of  reality  which  it  is  the  duty  of  theology  to  study  and  make 
known  to  others.  For  however  mysterious  may  be  their  first  cause,  and 
however  complex  may  appear  their  manifestation,  religious  phenomena 
are  psychological  facts,  which  everyone  discovers  first  in  himself  and 
then  in  the  past.  Theology  therefore  has  two  sources — psychology  and 
history,  and  their  union  must  constitute  its  entire  method  of  observa- 


RELIGIOUS  AND  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE          349 

tion,  direct  and  indirect.  History  is  psychology  going  back  to  the  past 
as  far  and  as  fully  as  the  documents  permit ;  psychology  is  history  car- 
ried down  to  the  present  moment  and  into  the  personal  experience  of  the 
thinker.  There  is  therefore  no  compromising  dualism  in  the  theological 
method.  The  more  sincerely  the  method  is  applied  the  more  serious  will 
be  its  results.  If  mental  probity  is  a  duty  in  every  order  of  research, 
it  seems  to  be  more  imperatively  so  in  the  religious  order,  in  which  illu- 
sions, being  more  easy,  call  for  the  greater  vigilance  and  disinterested- 
ness. The  theologian,  knowing  no  sources  of  information  beyond 
psychology  and  history,  ought  to  be  the  most  clear-sighted  of  psycholo- 
gists and  the  most  rigorous  of  critics.  He  can  make  his  task  a  scientific 
work  only  on  these  two  conditions. 

m 

The  Degree  of  Objectivity  m  Religious  and  Christian  Experience 

AN  invincible  character  of  subjectivity  is  inherent  in  all  human  sciences, 
because  all  are  in  two  respects  dependent  upon  the  forms  of  the  sensitive 
faculty  and  the  constitution  of  the  mind.  Mathematics  is  no  exception, 
notwithstanding  the  realm  of  pure  evidence  in  which  it  moves,  for  if 
from  the  formal  point  of  view  it  is  limited  to  the  application  of  the 
logical  principle  of  identity,  A  =  A,  from  the  material  point  of  view 
it  operates  only  upon  the  purely  relative  idea  of  size  or  quantity,  and  is 
based  upon  the  notion  of  space  to  which  we  attain  by  means  of  abstrac- 
tion. That  which  makes  the  objectivity  of  the  natural  sciences  is,  there- 
fore, not  that  they  find  their  object  outside  of  the  knowledge  of  it  which 
we  already  possess,  it  is  simply  the  unescapable  necessity  of  the  laws  and 
conditions  which  determine  knowledge.  With  regard  to  these  laws  and 
conditions  the  will  of  the  thinking  subject  is  powerless.  He  can  make 
an  abstraction  of  them,  and  the  importance  of  the  abstraction  in  each 
science  remains  exactly  that  of  the  objectivity  of  which  the  science  may 
boast. 


350         RELIGIOUS  AND  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE 

But  moral  sciences,  and  theology  in  particular,  are  subjective  to  a 
still  higher  degree.  In  fact  the  very  object  of  their  study,  that  is,  the 
moral  and  religious  life,  is  the  creation  of  the  free  determinations  of  the 
Me,  so  that  without  these  determinations  of  the  will  moral  and  religious 
morality  would  not  even  manifest  itself  to  the  conscience,  and  would 
awaken  in  us  no  image  nor  any  idea.  What  is  moral  good,  virtue,  to 
him  whose  conscience  imposes  no  obligation  upon  the  will  ?  What  is  God 
to  him  who  is  totally  deprived  of  the  religious  sentiment,  that  is,  of  the 
sense  of  an  inner  relation  with  God?  Now  it  is  certain  that  the  free 
will  of  the  subject  intervening  here,  it  depends  upon  the  subject  whether 
the  religious  and  moral  quality  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  is  more  or  less 
clearly  felt  and  perceived  by  the  conscience.  Therefore  moral  sciences 
are  doubly  subjective  as  compared  with  physical  sciences. 

And  yet,  the  law  according  to  which  religious  and  moral  phenomena 
become  realised  none  the  less  ends  in  a  sort  of  objectivity  which  it  is 
necessary  to  define.  The  objectivity  of  the  physical  sciences  is  founded, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  upon  the  absolute  and  constraining  necessity  im- 
posed upon  natural  laws  by  the  principle  of  causality  which  constitutes 
them.  The  moral  law  has  doubtless  not  the  same  character,  but  it  is 
subject  to  another  sort  of  necessity,  which  may  be  described  by  Kant's 
expression,  Categorical  imperative.  Moral  obligation  makes  appeal  to 
the  decision  of  the  Me,  and  consequently  treasures  and  respects  it;  but 
on  the  other  hand,  is  it  not  absolute  in  so  far  as  it  may  prescribe  and 
prephesy  that  which  ought  to  be?  Are  not  the  idea  of  life  and  the 
idea  of  the  good  identical?  If  the  law  of  duty  is  the  immanent  law  of  the 
life  of  the  spirit,  if  outside  of  it  life  is  overwhelmed  and  lost  in  animality, 
if  the  apostle's  word  is  true,  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death  " ;  if  humanity 
makes  no  progress,  fails  to  realise  its  true  being  or  to  advance  toward  its 
ideal,  except  by  obedience;  if  necessity  is  laid  upon  individuals  as  upon 
nations  either  to  make  moral  growth  or  become  extinct ;  if  this  law  com- 
mands universal  evolution,  marking  its  line — does  it  not  become  evident 
that  on  this  side  the  law  of  duty  shares  in  the  objectivity  of  cosmic 


RELIGIOUS  AND  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE  351 
laws  themselves,  appearing  as  highest  and  most  sovereign  among 
them  all? 

Experience  confirms  this  deduction.  Morals  and  religion,  issuing 
from  the  individualistic  sphere  of  consciousness,  become  historic  poten- 
cies, and  with  philosophy  and  science  are  the  great  creative  potencies 
of  civilisation,  and  the  revelatory  signs  of  the  true  nature  of  the  human 
spirit.  That  historic  objectivity  which  observation  may  grasp  may  at 
least  not  be  denied  them,  and  being  granted,  moral  and  religious  science 
has  at  least  an  equal  dignity  with  philosophy  and  history,  in  which  it  at 
the  same  time  participates.  Theology  is  in  fact  historical  by  the 
material  upon  which  it  works,  and  philosophical  by  the  method  according 
to  which  it  is  constructed. 

It  is  a  grave  error  to  imagine,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  scientific 
theology  has  for  the  object  and  material  of  its  study  only  the  religious 
or  moral  phenomena  which  take  place  in  the  individual  conscience,  and 
that  it  is  consequently  useless,  because  there  is  no  good  reason  for  sup- 
posing purely  individual  phenomena  to  be  anything  else  than  the  dreams 
or  illusions  of  the  subject  who  experiences  them.  The  moral  and  reli- 
gious life  is  not  only  individual,  it  is  collective.  It  is  pre-eminently  a 
social  and  human  fact.  It  is  with  the  moral  as  with  the  physical  indi- 
vidual. However  independent  may  be  its  life,  it  can  develop  only  in  the 
bosom  of  the  family  or  the  race.  It  is  a  drop  of  water  in  a  river,  a  link 
in  a  chain.  In  its  consciousness  are  individual  phenomena  ephemeral  as 
a  dream,  no  doubt,  or  as  a  caprice  or  a  perverse  passion,  but  there  are 
also  movements  which,  being  repeated  from  end  to  end  of  the  human 
chain,  are  thus  prolonged;  there  are  natural  instincts  which  burst  into 
flower  and  show  their  true  importance  only  in  the  life  of  the  entire  spe- 
cies. Just  as,  in  the  physical  order,  the  love  of  one  sex  for  the  other, 
instead  of  appearing  to  be  an  individual  fugitive  caprice,  is  the  invincible 
power  which  preserves  and  propagates  the  species,  so  moral  and  religious 
inspiration  is  the  mysterious  breath  which  lifts  up  the  human  soul  and 
from  generation  to  generation  carries  man  forward  toward  humanity. 


352          RELIGIOUS  AND  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE 

It  is  impossible  to  insist  too  much  upon  the  organic  and  indissoluble 
bond  which  thus  attaches  individual  experience  to  historic  and  collective 
experience.  Scientific  theology  considers  them  in  their  essential  unity, 
and  the  object  of  its  study  lacks  neither  consistency  nor  greatness.  Its 
problem  is  to  formulate  the  theory  of  the  religious  and  moral  life  of  all 
humanity. 

This  programme  cannot  as  yet  be  entirely  filled.  The  religious  ar- 
chives of  the  human  race  have  not  yet  been  thoroughly  explored,  nor  is 
religious  psychology  as  yet  sufficiently  advanced.  The  science  of  reli- 
gion must  therefore  be  progressive;  in  common  with  the  other  sciences 
it  will  gain  a  new  character  which  will  earn  for  it  credit  in  place  of  dis- 
dain. But  if  its  pathway  is  undefined  its  direction  is  at  least  marked 
by  two  fixed  points  which  experience  has  furnished.  The  first  is  the 
religious  consciousness  of  savage  and  primitive  man;  the  second  is  the 
religious  consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  has  become  the  regulating 
principle  of  the  Christian  consciousness  of  civilised  peoples. 

To  explain  the  ascending  movement  by  which  humanity  has  passed 
from  one  point  to  the  other,  to  reveal  the  basis  and  essence  of  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  and  explain  its  necessary  relations  with  human  con- 
sciousness in  general  and  with  modern  culture  in  particular,  this  is  the 
task  with  which  modern  theology  is  now  confronted,  and  which  it  may 
undertake  with  some  hope  of  success.  The  Christian  consciousness  is 
not  merely  an  accidental  form  or  part  of  the  general  religious  conscious- 
ness of  humanity,  it  is  a  necessary  and  dominant  part  of  it,  to  which 
all  the  others  tend  as  to  their  ideal,  and  in  which  alone  they  find  their 
explanation  and  perfecting.  It  is  with  the  final  term  of  this  evolution 
as  with  the  summit  of  a  mountain ;  the  summit  is  a  part  of  the  moun- 
tain, but  it  dominates  all  the  other  parts  in  their  ascending  stages  from 
the  depths  of  the  valley  to  itself,  and  by  that  fact  it  embraces  them  all 
and  assigns  to  each  its  place  and  rank  in  the  whole. 

The  line  of  evolution  of  all  peoples  as  they  press  toward  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  true  humanity  necessarily  passes  by  way  of  Christianity. 


RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY  363 

This  is  why  scientific  theology  cannot  be  anything  else  than  Christian 
theology. 

IV 

Religion  and  Theology 

IT  is  impossible  to  grasp  religious  or  moral  experience  in  its  pure  and 
isolated  condition.  It  is  with  it  as  with  life,  which  nowhere  and  never 
manifests  itself  without  matter,  although  neither  its  principle  nor  its 
power  resides  in  matter.  So  the  religious  life  cannot  exist  without  be- 
lief, although  belief  is  neither  its  principle  nor  its  source.  For  this 
reason  in  these  days  men  almost  invariably,  and  with  reason,  distinguish 
between  religion  and  theology. 

This  distinction,  which  forces  itself  upon  the  religious  consciousness, 
implies  at  the  outset  two  elements  in  piety.  The  pious  emotion,  by  which 
I  mean  the  need,  the  desire,  and  the  impulse  which  disquiet  the  entire 
Me  and  inclines  it  toward  God,  is  always  accompanied  by  an  intuition, 
arising  from  an  ideal  picture  representing  to  consciousness  the  object 
which  produces  this  kind  of  emotion.  In  its  turn  and  under  the  influence 
of  reflection  this  image  is  changed,  in  idea,  into  doctrine  and  dogma. 
Such  is  the  psychological  genesis  of  the  religious  phenomenon.  Pure, 
abstract  logic  says  that  one  must  know  before  he  can  adore,  historical 
psychology  shows  that  in  the  first  instance  one  desires,  prays,  adores, 
and  thus  comes  to  know,  and  that  the  definition  of  the  object  of  adora- 
tion is  drawn  from  the  worship  offered  to  it  and  the  benefits  expected 
from  it.  If,  as  it  would  be  the  part  of  wisdom  to  do,  we  restrict  the 
term  faith  to  the  moral  act  which  inclines  the  soul  toward  God,  we  must 
say,  not  that  belief,  an  essentially  intellectual  act,  is  the  cause  of  faith, 
but  that  it  is  faith  which  produces  belief.  In  the  last  analysis,  the 
latter  is  simply  the  ideal  expression  of  the  former. 

It  is  indeed  true  that  in  its  turn  belief,  being  preached,  provokes 
faith,  that  is  to  say,  the  religious  life ;  that  there  is  a  strong  action  and  re- 
action between  the  two  during  their  whole  subsequent  development.  But 


354  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY 

we  must  be  wary  here ;  the  belief  which  is  brought  to  me  from  without 
by  one  of  my  brethren  awakens  the  religious  life  in  me  only  as  it  finds  in 
me  a  latent  need,  a  predisposition  to  faith.  Otherwise  it  remains  sterile, 
and  I  may  even  accept  it  unreservedly  without  by  that  becoming  reli- 
gious. Many  so-called  conversions  are  only  parrot  conversions. 

God  alone  is  the  author  of  life.  It  is  by  good  right  that  Christians 
say  that  faith,  the  earliest  manifestation  of  the  life  of  the  soul,  comes 
from  the  immanent  action  of  God.  Man,  therefore,  receives  life,  but 
makes  his  own  belief.  And  this  fact  establishes  a  new  and  most  impor- 
tant difference  between  the  life  of  faith  and  the  form  of  belief. 

Let  us  follow  it  still  farther.  The  propagation  of  life  is  not  an 
individual  act;  it  is  a  social  act.  The  individual  does  not  produce 
himself,  he  is  produced  in  a  society.  An  absolute  and  abstract  individ- 
ualism is  false  and  sterile.  Physiology  denies  it  in  the  physical  order, 
psychology  in  the  moral  and  religious  order.  To  propose  to  draw  life 
from  one's  self,  like  certain  philosophers  and  theologians  who  hope  to 
deduce  their  religious  faith  from  a  theoretical  demonstration,  is  a  dan- 
gerous delusion,  an  idealism  which  will  soon  leave  them  discouraged, 
sceptical,  and  powerless.  We  must  place  ourselves  in  the  actuality  of 
life.  That  which  takes  place  for  the  physical  life  is  precisely  repeated 
in  the  animal  life.  The  source  of  an  individual's  life  is  not  in  himself, 
but  in  society.  The  historic  source  of  the  religious  life  is  in  the  reli- 
gious society. 

Without  doubt  the  Spirit  of  God  is  its  author.  But  the  Spirit  does 
not  work  by  chance,  accidentally  and  from  without.  The  Spirit  of 
life  is  incarnate  and  immanent  in  the  religious  society  which  it  is  con- 
tinually creating  and  renewing.  Assuredly  it  blows  where  it  will,  but 
if  we  may  so  speak  no  wind  blows  apart  from  the  atmosphere ;  none  comes 
from  the  azure  realms  of  ether.  The  wind  is  found  in  the  agitation  of 
molecules  of  the  air;  so  the  mysterious  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
found  in  the  agitation  of  the  spirits  of  men.  Thence  the  vital  bond  of 
solidarity  which  unites  the  religious  man  to  religious  society,  the  Chris- 


RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY  365 

tian  to  Christian  society.  The  saying  of  Cyprian,  which  Calvin  em- 
phatically made  his  own,  is  true :  "  The  Church  is  the  mother  of  all  of 
whom  God  is  the  Father."  *  And  this  is  said,  not  to  limit  or  deny  the 
liberty  of  God  or  of  man,  but  to  show  the  organic  conditions  in  which 
both  liberties  are  invariably  exercised. 

Such  is  the  order  of  life;  quite  other  is  the  order  of  belief.  God 
gives  the  first;  he  does  not  command  the  second;  but  he  has  bestowed 
upon  man  the  faculties  of  imagination  and  intelligence  that  he  may  note 
the  experiences  of  life,  interpret  and  express  them.  Without  the 
slightest  doubt  thoughts  come  from  the  heart  and  ideas  are  born  of 
experience,  but  this  is  by  an  intellectual  elaboration  whose  character 
is  always  and  necessarily  subjective  and  contingent.  It  is  with  reli- 
gious ideas  as  with  all  others;  we  cannot  cite  a  single  one  which  came 
down  ready-made  from  heaven,  none  which  was  not  formed  in  a  human 
brain,  none  whose  genesis  we  cannot  trace,  and  its  development  through 
generations.  The  bread  of  the  spirit  has  its  price  equally  with  that  of 
the  body.  Whence  ensues  this  consequence:  hereditary  conceptions 
which  were  once  individual  conceptions  are  never  absolute  and  may 
always  be  indefinitely  modified  by  the  travail  of  mind  which  created  them. 

Tempora  mutantur,  nos  et  mutamur  in  Ulis. 

If  the  religious  life  implies  faith,  belief  implies  theology.  In  the 
first  the  soul  is  essentially  receptive,  in  the  other  it  is  active  and  pro- 
ductive. And  because  the  elaboration  of  doctrine  is  a  work  of  intellec- 
tual activity  it  implies  the  responsibility  of  the  theologian.  Here,  as  in 
every  other  field  of  labour,  man  reaps  what  he  has  sown.  To  speak  with 
the  apostle,  one  man  brings  to  this  building  gold,  silver,  excellent 
materials,  another  brings  wood  or  stubble.  The  fire  of  time  tests  the 
value  of  the  work  of  both.2 

Very  different  and  even  morally  contradictory  appear  therefore  the 
attitudes  of  the  believer  and  the  theologian.  When,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
1  Appendix  XCIV.  2 1  Cor.  ill.  18,  19. 


356  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY 

theologian,  the  same  man  is  obliged  to  maintain  both  attitudes,  how 
shall  he  reconcile  them?  From  God,  through  the  religious  society  in 
which  he  caused  me  to  be  born,  I  receive  life,  and  that  I  may  receive  it 
I  must  be  humble  and  docile;  but  my  personal  thought  once  thus 
aroused,  I  necessarily  become  the  judge  of  the  teaching  I  have  received. 
Can  I  stand  at  the  same  time  in  the  place  of  catechumen  and  critic ;  can 
I  at  once  feel  the  dependence  of  my  individual  consciousness  upon  the 
collective  consciousness  apart  from  which  my  life  must  dwindle  and  die, 
and  at  the  same  time  recognise  the  autonomy  of  my  thought,  without 
which  I  am  no  longer  I,  and  cannot  even  have  a  personal  faith?  This 
problem  is  the  problem  of  life.  I  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Church 
by  the  intellectual  and  moral  vigour  by  which  I  can  distinguish  between 
the  work  of  God  and  the  work  of  men  in  the  very  tradition  of  the  Church 

fc. 

itself;  and  I  escape  from  the  dangers  of  an  individualism  rooted  in 
nothing,  by  the  humility  which  reminds  me  that  here  below  I  am  at 
school  to  others,  while  at  the  same  time  I  must  be  the  master  of  myself. 

In  fact,  both  these  attitudes  are  imposed  upon  me  by  the  needs  of 
my  nature.  Each  is  justified  by  the  other,  and  both  make  progress  by 
mutual  conflict.  The  things  that  I  learn  at  the  school  of  the  past  serve 
to  fortify  my  own  personality,  and  the  stronger  it  grows,  the  more 
imperative  becomes  its  duty  to  find  its  own  place  in  the  social  order,  and 
discover  in  this  order  its  function  and  employment.  To  individualise 
in  myself  the  faith  of  my  fathers,  while  freeing  it  from  all  that  was 
erroneous  in  that  faith,  to  socialise  my  personal  faith  by  freeing  it  from 
all  egotism  and  gaining  for  it  an  ever  clearer  consciousness  of  being 
rooted  in  the  past,  and  having  much  in  common  with  the  faith  of  the 
society  of  the  present,  this  is  my  double  task,  the  double  rhythm  of  my 
inward  life,  by  which  I  love  both  the  tradition  which  compels  me  and  the 
inward  liberty  which  makes  my  dignity. 

To  remain  loyal  to  the  religious  tradition  of  the  past,  to  enhance 
its  dignity  in  the  present  and  carry  it  on  into  the  future,  this  is  the 
mission  of  the  theologian. 


FUNCTION  AND  METHOD  OF  THEOLOGY  357 

V 

The  Matter,  Function,  and  Method  of  Theology 

THEOLOGY  is  in  no  sense  a  speculative  science.  It  is  an  error  to  con- 
found it  with  metaphysics.  In  the  psychological  fact  of  religion  its 
basis  is  in  experience;  and  in  dogma  or  traditional  theology  it  finds  its 
matter  formulated  by  history.  Schleiermacher  was  not  without  reason 
in  classing  it  among  historic  disciplines.  In  our  opinion  it  belongs 
rather  to  sociology;  for  religion,  the  object  of  its  study,  is  certainly, 
side  by  side  with  language,  the  most  important  social  fact  which 
sociology  can  investigate.  The  sociological  character  and  importance 
of  theology  will  in  the  future  appear  and  assert  itself  with  ever  greater 
evidence. 

Dogmas,  doctrines,  received  belief,  are  nothing  else  than  the  intel- 
lectual expression  of  the  common  religious  consciousness  in  a  given 
society.  By  dogmas  and  doctrines  this  consciousness  manifests  its  con- 
tent and  explains  to  itself  its  origin  and  reason  for  being.  No  doubt  it 
finds  expression  and  means  of  making  itself  known  under  still  other 
forms;  for  example,  in  the  forms  of  worship,  and  in  the  institutions 
and  customs  to  which  it  gives  rise.  Theology  may  not  fail  to  take 
account  of  these.  But  after  all,  in  nothing  is  the  religious  conscious- 
ness more  directly  revealed,  with  more  precision  and  clearness,  than  in 
dogma.  In  what  manner,  according  to  what  laws,  with  what  degree 
of  legitimacy,  does  the  immediate  sentiment  of  piety  which  comes  from 
God  find  intellectual  expression  in  figures,  in  notions,  in  doctrines?  To 
answer  this  question,  to  observe  this  transition  from  sentiment  to  idea, 
and  to  appreciate  in  how  far  the  idea  is  the  more  or  less  just  and  ade- 
quate expression  of  the  sentiment,  is  the  proper  task  of  scientific  the- 
ology. Thus  dogma  is  necessarily  the  matter  of  its  study,  the  tie  by 
which  it  is  bound  to  the  social  religious  tradition,  and  labours  to  give 
it  even  better  and  higher  form.  However  radical  and  severe  it  may  be 
in  criticising  the  formulas  of  the  past,  in  the  end  it  is  always  positive, 


308  FUNCTION  AND  METHOD  OF  THEOLOGY 

for  by  the  very  act  of  setting  the  religious  sentiment  free  from  the 
worn-out  wrappings  in  which  it  suffers,  misconceived  and  paralysed, 
it  restores  it  to  inexhaustible  vigour  and  creative  power. 

Thence  we  derive  the  religious  and  social  function  of  theology.  This 
function  is  twofold.  It  is  its  duty  first  to  make  dogmas  intelligible,  and 
second,  to  make  them  respectable.  It  succeeds  in  both  in  proportion  as 
it  discovers  the  laws  of  their  birth  and  development,  shows  that  they 
were  originally  rooted  in  piety  itself,  teaches  us  to  distinguish  between 
the  sentiment  that  inspired  them  and  the  intellectual  elements  of  which 
they  were  formed.  History  at  once  justifies  and  condemns  dogmas.  It 
justifies  the  form  they  took  on  in  the  past  by  the  historic  necessity  that 
religion  shall  always  adapt  itself  to  its  time  and  its  environment. 
But  times  and  environments  change;  the  intellectual  elements  of  be- 
lief grow  old  from  age  to  age;  they  need  therefore  to  be  renewed, 
and  the  truth  is  that,  notwithstanding  the  most  obstinate  resistance  of 
religious  conservatism,  they  are  continually  renewed.  Thus  the  crit- 
icism of  dogmas  goes  on  side  by  side  with  their  justification.  Trac- 
ing out  their  transformations  in  history,  theology  forces  them  to  lay 
aside  such  elements  as  are  foreign  to  religion  itself,  and  notions  which 
though  once  doubtless  alive  are  now  dead  through  disuse.  History  is 
the  ever-sliding  sieve  of  human  ideas,  or  rather,  if  another  comparison 
may  be  permitted,  it  is  a  stream  whose  waters,  continually  filtered  by 
their  passage  through  successive  layers  of  sand,  discharge  in  each  the 
impurities  which  they  took  from  that  preceding  and  thus  slowly  attain 
an  ever  greater  degree  of  limpidity. 

But  the  critical  history  of  dogma  is  only  a  preface  to  the  work  of 
theology.  From  what  has  been  it  must  bring  forth  what  ought  to  be. 
In  faith,  in  that  inward  piety  whence  it  draws  its  origin,  theology  finds 
also  an  ideal  which  it  is  its  mission  unwearingly  to  pursue.  Essentially 
a  reforming  agency,  it  comes  to  the  succour  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness in  all  the  crises  through  which  the  latter  is  called  to  pass.  It  is  not 
enough  that  theology  shall  make  clear  the  senility;  of  the  old  forms  of 


FUNCTION  AND  METHOD  OF  THEOLOGY  359 

religion ;  its  task  is  to  create  for  it  new  forms,  and  bring  the  gospel  of 
Christ  into  more  immediate  contact  with  the  consciences  of  men  and  of 
modern  society;  to  make  it  the  better  understood,  that  it  may  be  the 
more  readily  accepted.  Thus  it  becomes  a  beneficent  mediator  between 
the  life-principle  of  Christianity  and  the  needs  and  requirements  of  the 
present  time.  For  those  elements  of  traditional  belief  which  have  become 
outworn  and  unassimilable,  it  substitutes  new  intellectual  elements, 
philosophical  and  scientific  notions  drawn  from  culture  already  acquired. 
Thus  it  results  that  harmony  is  restored  between  that  which  it  would 
be  fatal  not  to  retain  of  the  traditions  of  the  past,  and  that  which  it 
would  be  fatal  also  not  to  receive  with  joy  and  confidence,  of  the  con- 
quests of  the  present  and  the  future. 

Unquestionably,  harmony  thus  obtained  can  be  neither  absolute  nor 
final.  All  is  movement  in  us  and  around  us.  It  is  the  part  of  theology 
simply  to  respond  loyally  and  efficaciously  to  the  necessities  of  the  present 
hour.  It  must  remain  progressive,  like  all  other  sciences,  which  day  by 
day  do  a  positive  without  ever  doing  a  completed  work.  To  interpret 
the  life  of  dogma  in  the  past,  and  renew  it  continually  in  the  present  and 
the  future,  such  is  the  double  function  of  theology. 

To  accomplish  this  task  theology  has  at  its  disposition  three  instru- 
ments: one  historical,  Holy  Scripture;  one  philosophical,  the  scientific 
mind  with  its  accepted  methods;  and  one  of  religious  discernment,  or 
Christian  experience  and  the  instinctive  sense  created  by  it. 

Holy  Scripture,  upon  which  Christian  piety  can  never  cease  to  feed 
without  ceasing  to  be  itself,  is  no  longer  a  dogmatic  authority.  There 
can  therefore  be  no  question  of  borrowing  directly  from  it  and  imposing 
upon  modern  theology  any  formula  or  thesis  properly  so  called.  There 
are  theologoumena  in  Scripture,  but  these  first  elements  of  the  intellec- 
tual explanation  of  the  Christian  principle  belong  to  the  time,  and  the 
culture  of  the  time,  when  the  biblical  books  were  written.  They  must 
be  left  there,  and  it  is  an  intolerable  anachronism  to  seek  to  transport 
them  absolutely  into  our  own  time. 


360  FUNCTION  AND  METHOD  OF  THEOLOGY 

But  Scripture  is  none  the  less  a  historic  document  by  whose  means 
we  can  go  back  to  the  first  springs  of  Christianity;  it  is  none  the  less 
the  necessary  starting  point  of  all  religious  and  dogmatic  development 
since  that  time.  It  is  the  first  tradition,  if  any  choose  to  call  it  so. 
Having  preceded  all  forms  of  later  tradition,  it  is  the  historic  norm 
by  which  these  may  and  should  be  controlled,  that  we  may  know  to  what 
degree  they  adhere  to  or  depart  from  the  primitive  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity. All  dogmas  come  from  Scripture  by  way  of  interpretation ;  all 
go  back  to  it  as  their  original  source  and  warrant.  They  can  be  ex- 
plained only  by  it,  and  the  history  of  each  dogma  would  be  incomplete, 
and  consequently  unintelligible,  if  it  did  not  begin  by  showing  the  germ 
of  the  dogma  in  the  teaching  of  the  Bible.  Only  thus  can  we  accurately 
discern  what  new  elements  successive  ages  and  philosophies  have  added 
to  it.  Theology  is  not  bound  under  the  yoke  of  biblical  conceptions, 
but  it  is  clear  that  no  new  dogmatic  expression  would  be  legitimately 
Christian  if  it  contradicted  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  and  were  bound  by 
no  tie  to  primitive  Christian  experience,  of  which  the  Bible  is  the  authen- 
tic document.  The  Bible  is  not  an  authority  for  theology,  but  it  will 
ever  be  an  indispensable  means  of  historic  explanation  and  religious  con- 
trol of  theology. 

In  the  second  place  we  have  to  confront  the  dogmas  and  beliefs  of 
the  past  with  the  scientific  spirit  and  the  religious  consciousness  which 
centuries  of  culture  and  reflection  have  formed  in  the  modern  man.  Here 
in  reality  begins  the  theological  task,  which  consists  in  nothing  else  than 
this  necessary  comparison,  with  a  loyal  effort  to  bring  out  all  its  teach- 
ings. Every  doctrinal  formula  is  an  exercise  and  act  of  thought.  This 
exercise  and  act  are  amenable  to  the  laws  and  conditions  which  make 
thought  accurate  and  true.  First  are  the  laws  of  logic.  It  is  certain 
that  a  doctrine  involving  a  flagrant  contradiction  cannot  maintain 
itself  to  the  mind,  that  such  contradiction  undermines  it  and  compels 
its  reconstruction.  The  history  of  all  dogmas  more  than  amply  demon- 
strates this.  But  logical  laws  are  merely  the  formal  conditions  of 


FUNCTION  AND  METHOD  OF  THEOLOGY  361 

thought.  Its  substance  is  experimental  knowledge  of  the  universe 
gained  by  astronomy,  geology,  chemistry,  physiology ;  of  the  history 
of  humanity,  its  origin  and  evolution,  gained  by  historical  criticism,  and 
of  the  mental  life  of  man,  gained  from  psychology.  When  we  measure 
the  distance  which  from  all  these  points  of  view  lies  between  our  whole 
conception  of  things  and  that  of  the  ancients,  or  even  that  of  the  Middle 
Ages;  when  we  recognise  the  necessary  dependence  of  the  religious 
notions  of  the  past  upon  the  conception  then  dominant,  we  perceive  that 
it  will  no  longer  suffice  for  theology  to  make  a  few  corrections  of  detail 
in  the  old  dogmatic,  but  that  its  duty  is  to  proceed  deliberately  to  recon- 
struct the  entire  edifice  in  the  style  of  the  present. 

The  intellectual  form  of  a  doctrine  is  derived  from  the  scientific 
mind,  but  what  makes  a  doctrine  religious  and  Christian  is  the  reli- 
gious and  Christian  experience  which  explains  and  interprets  it.  This 
element  of  moral  order  is  the  common  basis  of  doctrine,  both  old  and 
new.  Any  doctrine  which  is  not  rooted  in  this  common  basis  is  by  that 
very  fact  outside  of  the  Christian  religion.  Therefore,  side  by  side 
with  the  scientific  spirit  necessary  to  the  theologian  is  this  personal 
experience  with  which  his  entire  thought,  his  entire  life,  must  be  inwardly 
animated.  He  can  be  a  Christian  thinker  only  on  this  condition. 

I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  to  souls  who  are  strangers  to  this 
inner  life  the  words  Christian  experience  represent  only  something  vague 
and  intangible.  St.  Paul  was  right  when  he  said  that  the  psychical  or 
carnal  man  cannot  comprehend  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  The 
reproach  that  this  is  all  mysticism  cannot  be  turned  aside.  The  theolo- 
gian must  accept  it  resolutely  and  make  of  it,  certainly  not  a  title  to 
glory,  but  the  very  reason  for  his  existence  and  work.  Far  from  being 
vague  and  obscure,  Christian  experience,  to  everyone  who  is  conscious 
of  it,  is  something  morally  very  clear,  accurately  determined,  which 
each  finds,  not  only  in  himself,  but  in  everyone  whose  consciousness  has 
been  awakened  to  the  same  life.  He  finds  ft  in  the  personal  life  of  every 
Christian,  great  and  small,  illustrious  and  obscure,  in  every  age ;  in  the 


UNITY;  ITS  ORGANISING  PRINCIPLE 

collective  soul  of  all  Christendom.  This  experience  first  of  all  took  place 
in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  from  him  has  been  shed  abroad 
in  every  conscience  which  has  a  sense  both  of  spiritual  misery  and  of  rec- 
onciliation with  the  Father  by  faith  in  the  good  news  of  his  infinite  love. 
This  wholly  religious  and  moral  content  of  the  filial  consciousness  of 
Christ  constitutes  and  determines  what  is  called  in  the  language  of 
Christianity  the  Spirit  of  Christ  or  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  history 
of  humanity.  This  Spirit  imposes  no  definite  doctrinal  formula;  it  is 
a  religious  sense,  a  faculty  of  discernment  inherent  in  Christian  faith, 
enabling  it  accurately  to  appreciate  and  judge  between  all  that  in  the 
present  or  the  past  is  of  its  permanent  essence,  and  all  that  is  foreign  or 
accessory  to  it.  Outside  of  this  inspiration  the  work  of  theology  is  as 
vain  for  the  progress  of  religion  itself  as  for  the  science  of  religion. 

Once  again  we  touch  the  vital  and  substantial  basis  of  Christianity. 
Here  is  the  starting  point  of  all  the  doctrines  which  theology  may  de- 
velop. In  this  principle  they  find  their  unity  and  become  an  organism. 
Of  this  organism  we  have  now  to  trace  the  broad  outlines. 


CHAPTER  SIX 

THE    ORGANISATION    OF    CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE 
I 

Unity;  Its  Organising  Principle 

TOWARD  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  under  the  influence  of  super- 
naturalistic  rationalism,  a  curious  definition  of  Protestantism  emerged. 
Aided  by  the  Aristotelian  categories  of  matter  and  form  which  had  been 
cultivated  since  the  Middle  Ages,  men  began  to  talk  of  a  material  prin- 
ciple (principwm  salutis)  and  a  formal  principle  (prmcipium  cog- 


UNITY;  ITS  ORGANISING  PRINCIPLE  363 

nosccndi).  The  material  principle  of  Protestant  doctrine  was  the  doc- 
trine of  justification  by  faith,  and  its  formal  principle,  the  divine 
authority  of  Holy  Scripture.  This  distinction  was  found  to  be  so  felici- 
tous and  convenient  that  it  has  been  current  ever  since  in  lecture  courses 
and  manuals  of  theology. 

Yet  its  late  appearance  might  well  have  laid  it  open  to  suspicion, 
and  still  more  so  the  variety  of  explanations  which  it  has  called  forth, 
and  which  have  only  served  to  make  it  the  more  obscure.  In  the  first 
place,  is  it  not  strange  that  we  should  be  obliged  to  base  a  religious 
system  upon  two  irreducible  principles?  Is  it  possible  to  give  equal 
importance  and  religious  value  to  a  book  and  its  contents,  to  the  gospel 
of  salvation  brought  by  Christ  and  the  method  or  instrument  by  which, 
historically,  we  have  received  it?  One  of  two  things  must  be  the  case: 
either  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  is  proclaimed  by  the  Protes- 
tant Church  as  the  sole  legitimate  interpretation  of  Scripture,  and  in 
that  case  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  is  fixed  once  for  all  by  this 
Church,  and  is  binding  upon  the  conscience,  and  we  are  in  very  Cathol- 
icism; or  else,  the  authority  of  Scripture  remaining,  its  interpretation 
is  still  free,  and  in  that  case,  as  the  text  is  capable  of  various  inter- 
pretations, at  least  in  certain  parts,  the  authority  of  the  Bible  may 
be  turned  against  the  dogma  of  justification  by  faith.  In  either  case 
Protestantism  breaks  down. 

There  is  another  danger.  It  is  easy  for  abstract  and  simplistic  logic 
to  make  the  truth  of  the  gospel  of  salvation  depend  upon  the  divine 
authority  of  Scripture.  The  Bible  then  becomes  the  foundation  of  the 
doctrine,  and  the  authority  of  the  book  becomes  the  true  and  highest 
object  of  faith;  which  leads  to  a  fatal  corruption  and  complete  misap- 
prehension of  the  purely  moral  and  religious  nature  of  faith.  This 
is  the  fundamental  weakness  of  Protestant  orthodoxy  and  the  intellec- 
tualism  which  is  its  mark.  Shall  the  faith  which  saves  depend  upon  a 
theoretical  demonstration — which  indeed  it  is  impossible  to  furnish — 
that  the  Bible  is  the  very  work  of  God?  May  I  not  receive  the  good 


364  UNITY;  ITS  ORGANISING  PRINCIPLE 

news  of  divine  pardon  until  I  shall  have  been  convinced  of  the  divine 
infallibility  of  the  books  which  announce  it?  Is  it  possible  to  maintain 
the  contention  that  faith  in  the  divinity  of  the  Bible  must  be  the  neces- 
sary preliminary  and  the  basis  of  all  the  Christian's  religious  notions,  his 
assurance  of  salvation,  his  hope,  and  the  communion  of  his  soul  with 
God?  Is  not  this  a  reversal  of  things,  and  does  it  not  demand  that  the 
nature  of  faith  shall  have  changed  since  the  time  when  there  was  as 
yet  no  New  Testament,  and  since  the  Reformation,  when  Luther  declared 
that  Scripture  is  the  servant,  not  the  Master,  and  hesitated  not  to  appeal 
from  the  servant  to  the  Master  in  every  place  where  Scripture  seemed 
to  him  not  to  render  faithfully  the  Master's  word  and  thought? 

We  rightfully  value  the  Bible,  because  it  is  a  precious  and  provi- 
dential means  of  making  and  keeping  objective  to  piety  the  person  and 
work  of  Christ  in  history.  But  for  how  many  souls  in  primitive  times 
was  this  office,  which  the  Bible  now  renders  to  us,  filled  by  the  preaching 
of  missionaries,  and  since  that  time  by  the  continuous  witness  of  the 
Church!  How  many  souls  have  been  saved  by  the  gospel  without  the 
Scriptures !  By  definition,  a  means  cannot  be  an  absolute  thing ;  it  is 
a  relation  between  a  principle  and  its  practical  action.  Neither  the 
Bible  nor  the  Church  is  a  principle  or  a  first  cause;  history  shows  that 
on  the  contrary  these  are  consequences  and  effects.  The  Bible  is  at  once 
the  work  of  the  Church  and  the  fruit  of  the  preaching  of  the  gospel. 
It  follows  that,  far  from  being  that  which  authenticates  and  guarantees 
the  truth  of  the  gospel,  it  is  from  the  gospel  that  both  Bible  and  Church 
draw  their  original  existence  and  present  dignity. 

So  much  as  to  piety.  As  to  doctrinal  construction,  to  posit  at  its 
basis\two  distinct  principles  such  as  these  is  to  introduce  into  its  founda- 
tion a  cause  of  disorganisation  and  incoherence.  Placed  upon  the  same 
level  as  the  gospel  of  salvation,  the  dogma  of  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture necessarily  takes  the  first  place  in  theology.  Henceforth  theology 
begins,  as  may  be  seen  in  all  treatises  of  dogmatic  orthodoxy,  by  a  chap- 
ter on  bibliology,  in  which  the  authority  and  origin  of  the  sacred  volume 


UNITY;  ITS  ORGANISING  PRINCIPLE  365 

are  established  before  any  explanation  of  its  contents  is  entered  upon. 
On  the  one  hand,  dogmatic  theology  is  held  to  resolve  questions  which 
belong  solely  to  history  and  criticism,  and  on  the  other,  the  Bible  having 
thus  been  treated  of  as  the  dogmatic  foundation  of  all  the  rest,  it  is 
taken  up  again  in  the  chapter  on  the  Church,  as  a  means  of  grace  offered 
to  piety.  The  edifice  is  thus  constructed  in  the  same  style  as  Catholic 
theology  and  upon  its  very  plan,  with  this  difference:  that  the  place 
held  by  the  Church  in  one  is  taken  by  the  Bible  in  the  other.  But  in 
both  cases  the  building  totters  to  its  fall,  because  in  the  last  analysis 
it  rests  upon  a  petitio  prmcipii. 

Therefore  we  must  give  up  finally  and  without  regret  this  dualistic 
conception  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  even  more  false  than  em- 
barrassing. It  reverses  and  misapprehends  the  psychological  and  his- 
torical processes  of  the  religious  life  and  the  true  genesis  of  the  doc- 
trine. As  the  object  of  theology  is  to  explain  the  life  of  piety,  it  ought 
to  be  the  ideal  reflection  of  piety,  and  consequently  it  should  find  in  life 
itself  the  organising  principle  of  doctrine.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
experience  this  principle  can  be  nothing  other  than  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness. By  this  we  mean,  to  use  a  modern  expression,  the  state  of 
soul,  the  fundamental  religious  purpose  of  the  Christian,  with  the  series 
of  inward  phenomena  which  constitute  and  of  outward  manifestations 
which  reveal  this  purpose.  This  state  of  soul  is  essentially  the  same  in 
individual  Christians  of  all  times,  in  the  collective  life  of  the  Church,  in 
the  initial  consciousness  of  the  Christ,  the  originator  and  norm  of  all 
the  others. 

To  strip  this  common  and  permanent  basis  of  the  accidental  forms 
which  often  hide  it  will  be  to  discover  and  posit  the  principle  whence  we 
deduce  the  unity  of  doctrine  and  its  entire  inner  organism. 


366    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CONSCIOUSNESS 

II 

Analysis  of  the  Christian  Consciousness 

THE  Christian  consciousness  is  constituted  by  the  vital  antithesis  of 
two  opposing  sentiments;  the  sense  of  fatal  separation  from  God,  and 
the  sense  of  blessed  reconciliation  with  him.  The  reciprocal  passage 
from  one  to  the  other  is  the  constant  activity,  the  very  life,  of  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness.  The  first  of  these  sentiments  represents  its  negative, 
the  second  its  positive  moment.  In  the  first,  the  important  thing  is  the 
deeply  rooted  sense  of  the  misery  and  slavery  of  sin;  in  the  other  the 
dominant  fact  is  the  sense  of  the  love  of  God,  the  infinite  mercy  of  the 
Father.  The  passage  from  one  to  the  other  is  made  by  repentance, 
which  is  the  judgment  pronounced  by  ourselves  upon  ourselves  and  our 
past,  and  by  faith,  which  is  trust  in  God  alone,  this  trust  naturally  be- 
coming the  hope  of  eternal  life.  This  interior  conversion,  in  the  expres- 
sive language  of  Scripture,  is  the  passage  from  darkness  to  light,  from 
death  to  life;  and  it  is  the  religious  consciousness  of  Christ  which,  be- 
coming ours,  works  in  us  this  change,  which  is  a  true  moral  resurrection. 

Is  not  this  state  of  consciousness  a  delusion?  Certain  mystics  and 
Christian  pietists  may  make  it  seem  so,  by  their  way  of  looking  upon 
conversion  as  the  entrance  upon  a  state  of  moral  quietude  by  a  regenera- 
tion which  they  imagine  to  be  final  and  perfect. 

No,  the  Christian  consciousness  is  not  a  resting-place  in  a  beatific 
state  in  which  is  no  remnant  of  wretchedness,  no  memory  of  the  past. 
The  relation  between  the  sense  of  sin  and  that  of  pardon  and  the  new 
life  is  quite  otherwise  complex.  In  reality,  these  two  sentiments  are  not 
successive,  but  simultaneous,  and,  as  it  were,  continually  present  in  one 
another;  they  condition  one  another,  intensify  one  another,  are  recipro- 
cally developed,  so  that  neither  is  truly  itself  without  the  other.  Thus 
the  sense  of  sin  reappears,  in  the  joy  of  pardon,  under  the  form  of  a 
profound  feeling  of  humility,  which  binds  the  Christian  more  closely 
than  ever  to  the  common  misery  of  his  fellow  men,  forces  upon  him 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CONSCIOUSNESS     367 

a  deeper  sense  of  his  entire  solidarity  with  them,  and  impels  him  to  take 
his  part  in  their  unceasing  struggle,  not  deeming  himself  better  than 
they.  In  like  manner  the  sense  of  the  love  of  God  is  already  active  in 
the  sense  of  sin,  awakening  repentance  and  faith  and  giving  rise  to 
an  ethical  hope. 

Thus  both  sentiments  persist  and  should  persist  in  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness, ever  reacting  upon  one  another.  The  sense  of  sin  is  the  more 
deeply  felt  in  the  soul  which  has  known  the  love  of  God,  and  the  love  of 
God  is  the  more  appreciated  by  the  soul  which  is  humiliated  and  grieved 
over  its  incurable  wretchedness.  The  Christian  consciousness  is  there- 
fore not  a  state  of  repose;  on  the  contrary  it  is  a  constant  oscillation 
of  the  soul  between  the  two  poles  of  its  life,  a  moral  exercise  of  self- 
examination  and  self -judgment,  of  repentance  and  faith,  by  which  the 
moral  life  is  deepened  and  extended  in  every  direction,  and  we  become 
ever  more  acutely  aware  of  the  shallows  of  our  nature,  while  rising  ever 
higher  upon  the  high  places  of  consciousness.  Is  it  not  in  fact  true 
that  the  more  the  conscience  becomes  pure  and  high  the  more  sensitive 
it  is,  and  that  it  is  the  saints  who  sincerely  deem  themselves  the  worst  of 
men  ?  And  it  is  only  those  who  are  still  living  in  the  moral  unconscious- 
ness of  a  higher  animality  who  feel  evil  neither  in  themselves  nor  out- 
side of  themselves,  or  who,  feeling  it,  are  indifferent  to  it. 

Let  us  then  put  away  the  idea  that  the  Christian  consciousness  iso- 
lates the  Christian,  separates  him  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  or  sequesters 
him  from  the  solidarity  of  the  common  destiny.  Quite  the  contrary, 
the  Christian  consciousness  is  not  essentially  different  from  the  moral 
consciousness ;  both  in  different  degrees  are  the  work  of  the  same  Spirit 
of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  The  first  is  the  deepening  and  broadening 
of  the  second.  The  Christian,  then,  remains  in  the  sphere  of  humanity. 
He  lives  in  the  same  conditions,  but  with  new  resources;  he  fights  the 
same  battles,  but  with  faith  that  victory  is  possible  and  in  hope  of 
obtaining  it. 

The  Spirit  of  God  is  power,  action,  an  inward  fire.     The  impulse 


368    ANALYSIS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CONSCIOUSNESS 

which  upbears  the  soul,  and  not  the  result  attained,  determines  the  value 
of  its  spiritual  life.  Thus  it  is  impossible  to  stop  at  the  simple  antith- 
esis between  the  sense  of  sin  and  redemption,  separation  from  God  and 
reconciliation  with  him.  Analysing  once  again  the  sense  of  sin  and 
the  state  of  rebellion  against  God,  we  quickly  discover  that  here  too 
is  a  duality  of  causes.  Behind  the  will  which  makes  the  evil  we  feel  the 
nature  which  inspires  and  makes  it  inevitable.  Repentance,  therefore, 
does  not  suffice ;  the  new  birth  is  farther  necessary,  the  birth  of  the  man 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  bosom  of  the  natural  man,  that  is  to  say,  the  trans- 
formation of  the  original  nature,  by  which  it  gradually  gives  place  to 
a  new  nature. 

In  like  manner,  behind  the  moral  conflict  which  sin  institutes  between 
man  and  God,  there  is  another  and  a  metaphysical  cause  separating  them 
and  setting  them  in  opposition  to  one  another,  that  fs,  the  chasm  which 
opens  for  the  religious  consciousness  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite, 
the  ephemeral  and  the  eternal,  the  weak  creature  of  accident  and  the 
universal  being.  Now  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  this  new  antithesis 
attacks  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  consciousness  and  threatens 
sometimes  to  overwhelm  it.  Thenceforth,  instead  of  two  terms  we  have 
three,  which  superimpose  themselves  in  consciousness,  and  form,  as  it 
were,  steps  of  the  ladder  of  life,  each  corresponding  to  an  advance  step 
in  the  religious  consciousness.  At  the  foot  is  the  sense  of  the  metaphysi- 
cal disproportion  between  man  and  God.  On  the  second  step  is  the 
sense  of  a  flagrant  conflict  between  sinful  man  and  the  just  and  holy  God. 
On  the  third,  the  moral  conflict  is  appeased  and  the  metaphysical  chasm 
is  filled  by  the  revelation  of  the  infinite  love  by  which  God  unites  himself 
to  man,  becomes  immanent  in  his  weak  being,  and  by  that  act  raises 
him  up  and  makes  him  live  in  God. 

Physiology  teaches  us  that  the  human  organism,  after  having  passed 
through  all  forms  of  life,  retains  in  its  structure  the  marks  of  all  these 
anterior  forms.  In  the  same  way,  at  the  depths  of  Christian  conscious- 
ness there  is  something  of  all  the  phases  through  which  humanity  has 


THREE  DEGREES  OF  RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION       369 

passed,  before  attaining  to  that  term  of  moral  and  religious  develop- 
ment in  which  the  very  idea  of  religion,  that  is,  of  the  perfect  union 
of  the  divine  and  the  human  in  Jesus  Christ,  becomes  realised  and  per- 
fected. This  entire  evolution,  taking  place  in  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness, it  is  the  duty  of  theology  to  explain,  and  by  explaining  to  produce. 
This  is  why  history  in  its  turn  ought  to  confirm  and  extend  the  conclu- 
sions of  psychology. 

Ill 

The  Three  Degrees  of  Religious  Evolution 

MAN  has  only  three  means  of  coming  into  association  with  his  fellows 
or  his  gods — interest,  law,  and  love.  In  social  life  he  always  obeys  one 
of  these  three  motives. 

Each  of  them,  being  founded  upon  the  very  nature  of  the  human 
being,  is  legitimate  in  its  time  and  order,  and  persists  in  the  entire  suc- 
cession, and  until  the  completion  of  individual  and  social  development. 
But  one  or  another  predominates  in  the  divers  phases  of  this  develop- 
ment and  characterises  them.  Thus  the  reign  of  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  corresponds  with  the  life  of  sensation,  needs,  and  appetites, 
which  is  first  developed  in  the  child  and  in  humanity.  Little  by  little 
emerges  the  idea  of  a  law  which  ought  to  rule  these  tumultuous  desires 
and  appetites,  and  of  a  pact  or  covenant  with  equal  and  reciprocal  obli- 
gations, to  pacify  and  regulate  the  relations  of  men  between  themselves. 
This  law  and  contract  find  their  basis  and  consecration  in  the  idea  of 
justice.  But  this  contract  relation  cannot  be  separated  from  the  idea 
of  force,  for  it  seeks  in  force  the  highest  sanction  of  obligation  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  contract,  which  in  the  last  analysis  simply  repre- 
sents an  equilibrium  of  often  opposed  interests.  Men  face  one  another 
in  opposition.  They  can  be  really  united  and  unified  only  in  love.  At 
the  highest  point  of  the  mental  life  two  disinterested  activities  of  the 
spirit  blossom  and  bear  fruit:  the  search  for  truth,  loved  and  pursued 
for  its  own  sake — and  this  search  is  the  full  enfranchisement  of 


370       THREE  DEGREES  OF  RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION 

reason — and  corresponding  to  it  in  the  practical  order,  the  gift  of  one's 
self,  the  faculty  of  finding  one's  self  in  others,  and  the  pursuit  of  the 
universal  and  highest  good,  without  mental  reservation;  and  this  as- 
piration of  love  is  the  full  expansion  of  the  life  of  the  heart.  Thus  the 
life  of  the  Spirit  is  fulfilled  in  that  mysterious  law  by  which  it  finds 
itself  ever  higher  and  richer  the  more  entirely  it  gives  and  sacrifices 
itself;  and  this  is  the  high  reconciliation  of  the  principles  of  individ- 
ualism and  socialism,  which  in  the  lower  grades  of  life  are  irreconcilably 
hostile. 

Properly  understood,  religion  is  only  a  social  bond  between  man  and 
the  superior  powers  upon  whom  he  feels  his  own  existence  to  depend. 
Necessarily,  therefore,  the  religious  sentiment,  as  soon  as  it  appears, 
manifests  itself  under  one  of  these  three  forms,  and  in  the  very  order 
which  has  just  been  described.  We  have  the  religion  of  interest,  the 
religion  of  law,  the  religion  of  love,  or  rather  an  indefinite  number  of 
mixtures  of  these  three  types,  which  can  be  absolutely  distinguished  only 
by  abstract  thought.  This  the  history  of  religion  shows,  by  the  course 
and  the  more  important  phases  of  its  development. 

In  the  beginning,  what  does  the  uncivilised  man  do  who  believes  him- 
self to  be  surrounded  and  dominated  by  mysterious  powers,  spirits,  or 
demons,  from  which  he  believes  that  he  has  equally  everything  to  fear 
and  everything  to  hope?  He  seeks  either  to  win  them  as  auxiliaries,  or 
to  protect  himself  against  their  ill-will.  Formulas  of  magic,  incanta- 
tion, and  gifts  offered  under  the  forms  of  sacrifice,  serve  him  to  command 
the  will  of  the  god  or  to  secure  its  good  graces.  What  then  is  the  reli- 
gious relation  in  this  first  degree,  if  not  the  relation  of  interest  or  selfish- 
ness between  two  unequal  powers?  The  man  of  sensation  is  above  all 
things  impressed  by  strength,  and  among  his  gods,  it  is  their  force  which 
is  the  object  of  his  adoration.  The  Homeric  Zeus  is  the  first  among 
gods  only  because  by  himself  alone  he  is  physically  stronger  than  all 
the  others  together. 

But  man  tends  to  escape  from  the  arbitrary  and  capricious  mani- 


THREE  DEGREES  OF  RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION       371 

festations  of  dreaded  occult  powers,  and  he  succeeds  on  the  day  when 
by  the  very  opposition  and  respect  of  reciprocal  interests  he  rises  to 
the  idea  of  a  compact,  a  law,  and  as  a  result,  at  the  notion  of  justice. 
This  idea  of  justice  commands  the  divinity  as  well  as  man;  the  god  and 
his  adorer  are  equally  held  to  obey  the  law  that  intervenes  between  them. 
Furthermore,  God  being  always  the  ideal  of  man,  the  will  of  a  righteous 
God  must  itself  be  the  law  of  righteousness,  and  to  establish  a  favourable 
bond,  a  blessed  harmony  between  God  and  man,  the  latter,  renouncing 
magic  and  self-interested  sacrifices,  has  only  to  lift  up  to  him  pure  hands, 
and  to  fulfil  his  law;  that  is  to  say,  his  will.  Thus  morality  enters 
religion  and  transforms  the  religious  relation.  That  which  man  now 
adores  is  force  subjected  to  the  law  of  righteousness.  The  strong  God, 
SN,  has  become  the  holy  God,  the  God  of  the  compact,  the  avenger  of 
violated  law,  mn\ 

But  in  this  second  degree  a  far  more  tragic  contradiction  appears 
in  the  religious  consciousness,  and  constrains  it  to  rise  still  higher,  and 
undergo  a  last  transformation.  In  the  religions  of  nature  man  trembled 
before  the  felt  disproportion  of  strength  between  the  divine  beings  and 
himself.  Now  he  trembles  for  another  reason.  When  he  has  violated 
the  law  of  righteousness  he  feels  the  shudders  of  remorse,  the  terror  of 
that  condemnation  which  awaits  him  at  the  tribunal  of  the  judge  who 
cannot  be  deceived.  The  moral  man  becomes  the  prey  of  a  painful  and 
humiliating  experience;  he  ought  to  do  right  and  he  does  wrong.  The 
generous  impulse  which  upbears  him  toward  the  ideal  which  he  has  con- 
ceived seems  to  have  no  other  effect  than  to  make  him  feel  how  heavy  and 
invincible  are  the  chains  which  weigh  him  down.  This  is  what  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  calls  the  sense  of  sin,  which  not  only  separates  the 
bad  man  from  the  holy  God,  but  puts  the  two  in  tragic  conflict,  making 
the  man  a  guilty  rebel  against  him  whose  eye  is  too  pure  to  behold 
iniquity  without  destroying  it. 

In  the  early  stages,  the  man  given  over  to  the  double  sentiment  of 
his  weakness  and  the  unlimited  power  of  God  felt  himself  to  be  separated 


372       THREE  DEGREES  OF  RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION 

from  him  by  a  sort  of  metaphysical  abyss,  into  which  he  vainly  cast 
all  the  imaginations  of  his  fancy  without  filling  it  up,  and  which  seemed 
to  grow  deeper  the  more  he  reflected  upon  it.  This  is  the  incommensur- 
able antithesis  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  between  weakness  and 
strength,  the  ephemeral  and  the  eternal,  the  insignificant  creature  and 
the  universal  and  perfect  being. 

In  vain  does  man  attempt  to  bring  together  the  opposing  terms 
of  the  great  antithesis;  he  succeeds  only  in  annihilating  each  by  the 
other.  If  he  energetically  posits  the  finite  and  its  phenomenal  forms,  he 
is  shut  up  in  empirical  atheism.  If  he  insists  upon  ideas  of  infinity  of 
eternal  substance,  the  absolute,  he  is  lost  in  pantheism.  And  this  impo- 
tence of  theoretic  thought  to  reconcile  dialectically  the  two  terms  is  only 
the  ideal  expression  of  the  practical  impotence  of  thg  man  of  sensation 
to  take  hold  in  his  weakness  upon  the  omnipotence  of  the  eternal  being. 

Traditional  metaphysics,  idealistic  or  spiritualistic,  operating  upon 
these  logical  antitheses,  comes  to  recognise  that  its  attempted  work  of 
conciliation  is  vain ;  but  it  still  fails  to  perceive  the  reason.  It  does  not 
see  that  these  abstract  notions  of  finite  and  infinite  being,  of  particular 
and  ephemeral,  universal  and  eternal,  far  from  being  the  highest  and 
richest  notions  of  the  mind,  are  its  lowest  and  most  denuded;  that  they 
belong  in  the  outermost  category  of  the  reason,  that  of  quantity,  and 
correspond  in  reality  to  the  most  elementary  religious  consciousness — 
that  of  natural  religions.  In  fact,  do  not  all  these  religions  logically 
end  in  a  mythological  polytheism,  which  at  the  first  breath  of  rational 
criticism  changes  into  a  mocking  atheism  or  a  speculative  pantheism? 

To  this  first  stage  belongs  also  that  vague  sentiment  of  absolute 
dependence  which  Schleiermacher  erroneously  makes  the  fundamental 
characteristic  of  the  Christian  consciousness.  No  doubt  the  Christian 
still  trembles  before  the  majesty  of  the  formidable  power  revealed  to 
him  in  the  spectacle  of  nature ;  no  doubt  he  experiences  the  sense  of  the 
nothingness  of  his  being  and  the  infinite  distance  which  separates  him 
from  the  unknown  God ;  but  this  is  only  a  moment  of  his  inner  life,  aad 


THREE  DEGREES  OF  RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION       373 

far  from  finding  in  it  the  basis  of  his  consciousness,  this  overwhelming 
sense  only  quickens  in  him  the  desire  to  escape  from  it,  and  the  joy  of 
at  once  overcoming  by  faith  the  anguish  of  this  dualism. 

The  first  sense  of  deliverance  and  joy  which  man  experiences  is  when 
the  moral  law,  the  law  of  righteousness,  welling  up  from  the  depths  of 
his  being,  bears  him  above  this  contact  with  blind  and  brutal  forces  of 
nature,  and  he  hails  it  as  at  once  the  essence  of  his  own  being  and  that 
of  the  divine  being.  Then  a  true  kinship  is  established  between  man 
and  God ;  then  the  dialogue  may  begin  between  them,  and  a  covenant  of 
alliance  founded  upon  morality  may  be  established  between  them.  At 
this  second  step  moral  conceptions  emerge  in  theology:  law,  liberty, 
effort  of  the  will  in  man ;  holiness,  righteousness,  reward  or  punishment 
in  God.  But  can  final  harmony  be  realised  in  this  legal  order?  The 
law  awakens  the  consciousness  of  sin,  and  sin  creates  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness between  the  righteous  God  and  the  sinful  man  a  new  chasm 
still  deeper  than  the  first.  In  vain  does  man  seek  to  close  it  by  throwing 
into  it  expiations,  good  works,  and  good  resolutions:  in  all  cases  the 
religion  of  law  necessarily  ends,  as  in  Judaism,  in  a  strict  and  super- 
ficial pharisaism,  or,  as  in  the  pagan  world,  in  moral  despair  or  the  vain 
negation  of  the  duty  of  righteousness. 

Thus  the  religion  of  law  no  more  than  the  religion  of  nature  can 
save  the  man — that  is,  establish  his  union  with  the  principle  of  his  own 
being,  and  realise  his  harmony  both  with  God  and  the  world. 

These  experiences  having  been  made  and  repeated  wherever  the  reli- 
gion of  law  succeeded  the  religion  of  nature,  the  time  was  fulfilled.  In 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  appeared  a  third  form  of  the  human  religious  con- 
sciousness, the  supreme  form  everywhere  announced  and  prepared  for  by 
the  spirit  of  reformers  and  prophets  as  well  as  by  the  plaints  and  hopes 
of  pious  souls,  and  which  since  Jesus  has  become  a  living  Christian  con- 
sciousness in  the  bosom  of  humanity.  In  the  religious  consciousness  and 
personal  piety  of  Christ  the  religious  relation  was  once  again  trans- 
formed. It  no  longer  rests  upon  power  nor  upon  law  and  the  resulting 


374       THREE  DEGREES  OF  RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION 

covenant,  but  upon  a  new  sentiment,  love.  Love  fills  up  the  metaphysi 
cal  distance  and  the  moral  chasm  opened  by  sin ;  it  brings  together  and 
unites  that  which  was  divided;  it  levels  mountains  and  raises  valleys, 
causes  oppositions  to  disappear,  reconciles  antinomies,  frees  man  from 
the  burden  of  nature  and  of  his  own  sin.  Feeling  himself  loved  without 
conditions,  and  in  his  turn  loving  without  reserve,  the  orphan  finds  a 
father,  the  sinner  finds  pardon,  and  feels  springing  up  in  the  depths  of 
his  being  a  new  life  of  power,  hope,  and  joy.  This  is  what  the  Christian 
finds  in  the  filial  consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  henceforth  becomes 
his  own  consciousness.  And  this  is  why  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  not  only 
the  Messiah  and  Saviour  of  his  people,  but  also  of  all  peoples  and  all 
men.  The  religious  evolution  which  took  place  in  him  took  place  in 
the  very  bosom  and  for  the  profit  of  all  humanity.  k 

The  God  who  was  first  revealed  as  the  strong  God,  El,  then  as  the 
God  who  guards  the  compact  of  alliance,  Jahveh,  is  at  last  revealed  in 
the  soul  of  Christ,  and  since  then  reveals  himself  in  every  believer  as  the 
Father  God.  This  is  the  mysterious  and  fecund  work  of  his  Spirit, 
active  in  nature  and  in  the  heart  of  man. 

To  these  successive  revelations  of  God  man  has  each  time  made  the 
response  which  each  inspired.  To  the  manifestation  of  force  he  replied 
by  interested  sacrifices  or  magical  prayers;  to  the  manifestation  of 
righteousness  he  replied  by  expiations  and  works ;  to  the  manifestation 
of  love  he  replied  by  faith  alone,  that  is  to  say,  an  act  of  confidence  and 
the  unreserved  gift  of  the  heart. 

Such  are  the  profound  stratifications  of  the  Christian  consciousness, 
corresponding  to  those  which  history  discovers  in  the  religious  evolution 
of  humanity.  Can  theology  have  a  higher  or  more  beautiful  mission 
than  to  learn  to  know  them  by  following  the  very  movement  which 
brought  them  into  existence? 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  SYSTEM  375 

IV 

Construction  of  the  Syttem 

ALL  this  being  so,  the  system  of  Christian  doctrine  is  found  to  consist 
of  three  stages,  proceeding  one  from  the  other,  and  developing  in  an 
ascending  movement  toward  the  realised  religious  ideal,  the  full  and 
eternal  union  of  the  soul  with  God. 

The  first  stage  brings  to  light  the  concepts  which  are  derived  from 
elementary  religious  experience,  the  religion  of  nature,  explains  how 
the  antithesis  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite  is  brought  to  conscious- 
ness, and  why,  when  consciousness  stops  here,  it  is  impossible  to  bridge 
over  the  distance  between  the  two  terms.  In  this  stage  no  proof  can  be 
found  of  the  existence  of  God ;  no  metaphysical  idea  of  God  can  be  con- 
structed nor  can  the  dogmas  of  creation  and  Providence  be  logically 
completed.  We  may  not  then  hope  to  find  in  these  elementary  abstract 
notions  any  basis  upon  which  the  Christian  doctrine  can  be  built;  but 
we  do  find  in  them  the  starting  point  of  the  Christian  life  and  thought, 
which  will  together  be  developed  under  the  stern  incentive  of  ex- 
perience. 

In  like  manner,  with  the  appearance  of  the  moral  life,  the  religious 
consciousness  becomes  enriched  with  new  elements;  the  standpoint  of 
thought  is  raised;  new  antinomies  start  up  and  as  yet  fail  to  find  their 
solution.  It  is  no  longer  the  antithesis  between  the  finite  and  the  in- 
finite; it  is  now  that  of  the  will,  subject  both  to  the  flesh  and  to  the 
moral  law — that  daughter  of  the  Spirit  of  life — to  the  sin  of  man  and 
the  justice  of  God.  A  new  world,  more  sublime  and  less  obscure  than 
that  of  physical  nature,  unfolds  itself  to  reflective  man,  a  higher  region 
upon  which  the  light  shines  fitfully,  and  in  which,  as  on  a  day  of  tem- 
pest, despair  and  prayer  engage  in  a  conflict  through  which  he  will  irre- 
sistibly attain  to  the  third  stage — the  religion  of  redemption  by  love. 

The  following  table  shows  the  coherent  and  progressive  system  of 
Christian  doctrine  which  it  is  the  duty  of  theology  to  elaborate. 


376  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

PAET   FIRST 

The  religion  of  nature,  or  the  elementary  consciousness  of  God. 
Metaphysical  opposition  between  God  and  man. 

1.  Antithesis  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite.     Its  relative  value. 
Its  it-reductibility. 

2.  Criticism  of  the  philosophical  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God. 
Their  irremediable  weakness. 

3.  Impossibility  of  logically  constructing  the  idea  of  God  and  de- 
termining his  metaphysical  attributes. 

4.  History  and  criticism  of  the  dogma  of  creation. 

5.  History  and  criticism  of  the  dogma  of  Providence. 

6.  Physical  evil  the  condition  of  the  birth  and  progress  of  the  spir- 
itual life.  t 

PAET   SECOND 

The  religion  of  law,  or  the  moral  cognisance  of  God.     Moral  oppo- 
sition between  God  and  man. 

1.  Moral  man;  his  origin  and  the  conditions  of  his  development. 

2.  The  moral  law. 

3.  Moral  freedom. 

4.  The  moral  ideal  found  in  God.     The  moral  attributes  of  God. 

5.  The  moral  poverty  of  man. 

6.  The  psychological  notion  of  sin. 

7.  The  religious  notion  of  sin. 

8.  Theoretical  and  practical  contradiction  between  the  two  notions. 
Moral  despair. 

PABT  THIED 

I 

The  religion  of  love,  or  the  Christian  cognisance  of  God.     Salvation 
by  redeeming  love. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  SYSTEM  377 

1.  The  historic  human  consciousness  of  Christ.     His  teaching,  work, 
and  death  the  revelation  of  redeeming  love. 

2.  History  and  criticism  of  the  dogma  of  expiation. 

3.  Justification  by  faith,  sanctification,  and  eternal  life. 


1.  The  Church. 

2.  The  Church's  means  of  action,  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  rites 
called  sacraments. 

3.  The  relation  of  the  Christian  to  his  Church.    . 

4.  The  destiny  of  the  various  churches. 

m 

1.  The  Kingdom  of  God,  or  the  accomplishment  of  individual  and 
collective  salvation. 

2.  History  and  criticism  of  traditional  eschatological  doctrines. 

3.  The  Kingdom  of  God  and  human  history. 

4.  The  future  life. 

IV 

Metaphysical  Dogmas 

1.  Predestination. 

2.  Christology. 

3.  The  Trinity. 

4.  God  all  and  in  all. 

Thus  comprehended,  theology  abides  in  its  own  domain,  which  is  the 
study  and  explanation  of  Christian  experience.  But  though  it  has  a 
special  task,  and  is  consequently  independent,  it  is  not  isolated;  it  re- 
mains open  to  the  action  of  all  the  various  sciences,  and  carries  on  con- 
tinual commerce  with  them.  It  touches  by  its  origin  upon  primitive 


378  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

anthropology  and  by  its  conclusions  upon  sociology,  or  the  theory  of 
the  development  of  the  life  of  individuals  and  societies.  From  the  view- 
point to  which  it  is  lifted  by  Christian  religious  experience,  it  necessarily 
tends  to  see  things  whole;  to  find  a  total  conception  of  the  universe 
(  Weltanschauung). 

Naturally,  it  pursues  the  ideal  of  truth,  not  a  conclusion  which  it 
has  dogmatically  imposed;  and  to  arrive  at  this  ideal  it  needs  the  col- 
laboration of  all  other  sciences.  It  must  stand  ready  to  broaden  its 
horizon  to  admit  all  those  discoveries  which  are  continually  being  made 
in  every  field  of  research,  and  which  either  enlarge  or  make  more  accurate 
the  inquest  of  humanity  upon  the  universe.  Theology  is  thus  no  more 
than  any  other  a  closed  and  completed  science;  it  repeats  with  ever 
deeper  conviction  and  sincerity  the  apostle's  word :  "  We  know  in  part." 
It  is  carrying  on  a  work  which  needs  long  generations  of  workmen.  It 
is  never  other  than  tentative,  and  he  who  writes  these  lines  knows  better 
than  any  other  that  his  long  and  difficult  enterprise  is  only  a  prelim- 
inary essa"  If  he  does  all  that  in  him  lies  to  bind  up  his  sheaf,  it  is 
that  he  may  give  to  others  an  idea  of  the  fertility  of  the  field  in  which 
he  has  laboured,  and  thus  attract  to  it  new  labourers  stronger  and  more 
able  than  himself.  Never  for  a  moment  does  he  shut  his  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  his  sheaf,  so  painfully  and  perhaps  prematurely  bound,  must  be 
unbound  again  to  receive,  perhaps  ears  grown  at  an  earlier  day  and 
which  he  ought  not  to  have  overlooked,  and  surely  ears  of  a  new  harvest 
not  yet  come  to  maturity. 

Above  all,  he  loves  to  think  that  the  labour  of  philosophical  reflec- 
tion, however  indispensable  it  may  be,  is  nevertheless  not  the  essential 
thing  in  the  order  of  the  Christian  life;  that  there  is  something  more 
urgent,  more  necessary,  than  to  explain  the  experiences  of  piety,  and 
that  is  to  make  them.  At  the  close  of  this  long  effort  of  research  and 
meditation,  he  is  not  exempt  from  a  certain  lassitude  of  mind  and  heart ; 
and  he  lays  down  the  pen  with  the  prayer  of  our  old  Corneille: 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  SYSTEM  379 

O  Dicu  de  veritc,  pour  qul  seul  je  soupire, 

Unis  moi  done  a  toi  par  de  forts  et  doux  noeuds. 

Je  me  lasse  d'ouir,  je  me  lasse  de  lire, 

Mais  non  pas  de  te  dire: 

'C'est  toi  suel  que  je  veux.'" 

MO  God  of  truth,  whom  only  I  desire, 
Bind  me  to  thee  by  ties  as  strong  as  sweet; 
I  tire  of  hearing,  of  reading  too  I  tire, 
But  not  of  saying,  '  Thee,  God,  alone  I  need.' " 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX  I 

Vide  E.  Scherer,  "De  I'autoritd  en  matiere  de  fol"  (Revue  de  Theol.,  de 
Strasbourg,  1850,  vol.  i.  p.  65);  "La  critique  et  la  foi,"  1850.  P.  Jalaguier,  "Le 
temoignage  de  Dieu,  base  de  la  foi  chr&ienne,"  Toulouse,  1851 ;  "  Introduction  a  la 
dogmatique,"  Paris,  1877,  especially  chap.  vii.  C.  Rabaud,  "  Essai  sur  les  rapports 
de  la  foi  et  de  1'autoriteV'  1851.  A.  Vinet,  "  L'6ducation,  la  famille  et  la  socifteV 
1855;  "Melanges,"  1869.  J.  F.  Astie\  "Esprit  de  Vinet,"  1861.  Debry,  "  De 
1'autoritd  en  matiere  de  foi,"  1882.  J.  Lafon,  "De  1'autorite*  en  matiere  de  foi," 
1885.  Grftillat,  "  Expose1  de  theol.  systematique,"  L,  1885,  et  ii.,  1892.  S.  Martineau, 
"The  Seat  of  Authority,"  1891.  Leopold  Monod,  "Le  probleme  de  I'autoritt,"  3d 
edition,  Paris,  1891.  E.  Menlgoz,  "  L'autorite"  de  Dieu,"  Paris,  1892.  E.  Doumergue, 
"  L'autorit6  en  matiere  de  foi,"  1894.  A.  Boegner,  "  Quclques  reflexions  sur  Pautorit* 
en  matiere  de  foi,"  Rev  Chr.,  1894.  H.  Bois,  "La  connaisance  religieuse,"  Paris, 
1894,  chap,  xiv.,  "De  1'autoriteV'  Darlu,  "  De  Pindividualisme,"  Revue  de  meta- 
physiqut  tt  d«  moral*,  1898.  A.  Vidalot,  "  De  1'autorit*  d'apre*  Joseph  de  Malstre," 
1898. 

APPENDIX  II 

Thomas  Aquinas,  "  Surama  Theol.,"  Pars  I  a,  quest  1,  art  1  and  2:  N«c0»»artom 
igitur  fuit  prater  philosophlcas  disciplines  qua  per  rationem  investigantur,  tacram 
doctrinam  per  revelationeni  haberi.  Art.  2:  Sacra  doctrina  ett  scientia  ex  principiit 
notis  lumine  superioris  tcientice,  quce  Dei  et  beatorum.  Art.  8:  Argumentari  er 
auctoritate  ett  maxime  propriwm  hujus  doctrines,  eo  quod  principia  ejus  per  revela- 
tionem  habentur  et  tic  oportet  quod  credatur  auctoritati  eorum  quibut  revelatio  facta 
ttt.  This  notion  of  theology  and  of  the  method  of  authority  remains  immutable  In 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  In  his  "  Prelectiones  Theol."  (1,  p.  2)  Perrone  also 
says:  Divina  enim  revelatione  in  tuto  posita  atque  eccletice  catholic®  auctoritate 
ftrmiter  conttituta  facilit  erit  via  ad  ea  omnia  quce  hinc  sponte  quodammodo  ftuunt. 
The  Scholastics  of  Protestantism  replace  the  authority  of  the  Church  by  that  of  the 
Bible,  but  their  conception  and  practice  of  theological  method  are  the  same.  It  is 
always  the  method  of  authority.  Perrone,  "Theol.  Dogm.,"  says:  "The  sole  rule 
which  Jesus  Christ  willed  to  leave  to  converted  peoples  or  those  still  to  be  converted, 
to  fix  In  an  immediate  manner  what  they  must  believe  and  do,  was  the  public,  per- 
petual, and  living  authority  of  the  Church.  Whence  it  follows  that  the  system  of 

881 


382  APPENDIX 

authority  is  in  such  manner  bound  up  with  Revelation  that  we  must  reject  all  revela- 
tion ...  or  admit  a  certain,  sure,  and  even  perpetual  method  by  which  it  is 
possible  for  men  to  know  those  truths  and  precepts  without  fear  of  misapprehension. 
It  is  the  established  authority  of  God  himself." 


APPENDIX  III 

Vinet,  "Melanges,"  p.  97:  "Society  forgets  that,  respectable  and  necessary  as 
she  is,  man  was  not  created  exclusively  for  her;  that  she  is  as  much  the  instrument 
of  the  individual  as  the  individual  is  her  instrument;  that  Providence  perhaps  has 
not  so  much  committed  man  to  the  care  and  perfecting  influences  of  society  as  society 
to  the  care  and  perfecting  influences  of  man;  that  humanity  is  real  and  living  only 
in  the  individual;  that  he  alone  lives,  believes,  hopes,  obeys;  that  he  therefore  is  the 
true  object  of  the  divine  attention  and  judgment;  that  not  society  but  the  man  must 
appear,  and  already  does  daily  appear,  before  the  eternal  tribunal.  .  .  A  vivid 
belief  in  another  world  and  serious  expectation  of  it  would  suffice  to  awaken  in  souls 
that  individuality  which  is  remedilessly  dying  out  in  the  absence  of  this  immense 
interest.  .  ."  Nothing  is  more  true.  But  except  we  admit  that  death  breaks  all 
the  bonds  of  solidarity  which  here  below  attach  the  individual  to  the  family  and  his 
race,  individual  salvation  can  never  be  the  final  end  of  divine  Redemption.  That  end 
is  shown,  in  the  Gospels,  to  be  the  Kingdom  of  God  realised  at  once  on  earth  and  in 
heaven,  and  by  this  religious  notion  social  aspiration  and  individual  autonomy  are 
reconciled  in  a  perfection  whence  will  flow  universal  happiness  and  liberty  in  the  life 
of  love. 

APPENDIX  IV 

There  have  been  two  Gallicanisms:  that  of  Pierre  d'Ailly,  Gerson,  the  University 
of  Paris,  the  Assembly  of  Bourges  in  1439,  and  that  of  Thomassin,  Bossuet,  and  the 
Assembly  of  the  Clergy  in  1682.  The  former  was  much  more  radical  than  the  latter. 
Not  only  did  the  Councils  of  Pisa  and  Constance  judge  and  depose  Popes,  but  they 
set  up  as  a  principle  that  by  natural,  divine,  and  canonical  law  the  Pope  is  subject 
to  the  Council  General,  which  has  the  power  to  judge  and  condemn  him.  Much 
more:  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  the  Councils  remains  entire,  even  without  the 
Pope.  Gerson,  Opera,  edit.  Dupin,  1706,  II:  "De  Unitate  Ecclesiastica,"  "  De 
Auferibilitate  Papse."  Nicolas  de  Cusa,  "De  Concordantia  Catholica,"  1437.  V. 
Lenfant,  "  Hist,  du  Concile  de  Pise,"  and  "  Hist,  du  Concile  de  Constance,"  1724 
and  1727,  etc. 

APPENDIX  V 

This  is  the  contention  of  the  Assembly  of  the  Clergy  of  France,  1682.  The  fourth 
declaration  of  this  Assembly  expressly  submits  the  use  of  apostolic  power  to  the  rule 
of  the  ancient  canons  of  the  Church,  and  is  thus  expressed:  Though  the  Pope  have 


APPENDIX  383 

the  principal  part  in  questions  of  faith,  and  though  his  decrees  concern  all  the 
churches  and  each  church  in  particular,  yet  is  his  judgment  not  incontrovertible,  unless 
the  consent  of  the  Church  have  been  given. 

These  Galilean  maxims  were  reaffirmed  with  energy  by  the  Synod  of  Pistoia 
(1786).  Pope  Pius  VI  reproduced  in  the  Constitution  "  Auctorem  Fidei"  the  con- 
demnations with  which  his  predecessors,  Innocent  XI,  as  early  as  1682,  and  Alexander 
VIII,  in  1698,  had  already  pronounced  upon  them. 

The  policy  of  the  Roman  See  since  the  Council  of  Trent  has  been  to  set  aside 
every  teaching  contrary  to  the  absolute  sovereignty  and  personal  infallibility  of  the 
Pope,  and  to  make  him  supreme  and  triumphant  in  fact,  before  proclaiming  him  such 
in  law.  The  final  result  was  inevitable. 

APPENDIX  VI 

Gregory  VII,  Letters.  He  not  only  claimed  infallibility  and  absolute  sovereignty 
over  the  whole  earth,  but  even,  for  the  person  of  the  Pope,  absolute  sanctity.  It  was 
logical  and  psychological.  The  advocates  of  infallibility  later  abandoned  the  last 
postulate,  doubtless  fearing  that  the  lives  of  certain  Popes  would  vitiate  the  entire 
dogma.  And  yet,  how  is  it  possible  to  understand  the  exercise  of  such  power  over 
all  humanity,  and  a  complete  infallibility  of  inspiration,  without  sanctity?  Boniface 
VIII,  Bull  "  Unam  Sanctam  Ecclesiam."  Thomas  Aquinas  developed  the  principal 
attributes  of  the  Pope:  Summas  Pontifex,  caput  ecclesice,  cura  eccleaice  universalis, 
plenitudo  potestatis,  potestas  determinandi  novum  symbolum  ("  Summa  Theol.,"  sec. 
2,  quaest.  1,  art,  10).  Bellarmine,  "  De  Summo  Pontiftce  Capite  Totius  Militantis 
Ecclesiae,"  in  the  "  Disputations."  Catechismus  Romanus  of  Pius  V.  These  are  the 
principal  precursors  of  the  dogma  of  infallibility. 

APPENDIX  VII 

Leo  XIII,  Encycl.,  "  Immortale.  Dei,"  1885.  Non  absimili  modo  Pius  IX,  ut  ten 
opportunitas  dedit,  ex  opinionibus  falsis  qua  maxime  valere  ccepissent  plures  notavit 
casdemque  postea  in  unum  cogi  jussit  [Syllabus]  ut  in  tanta  errorum  collusione 
haberent  catholici  homines  quod  sine  o-ffensione  sequerentur  .  .  .  Itaque  in  tarn 
difficili  rerum  cursu  catholici  homines,  si  nos  ut  oportet  audierint,  facile  videbunt 
qua  sua  cujusque  sint  tarn  in  opinionibus  quam  in  factis  o/ficia.  ET  ix  OPINANDO 

QTTIDEM  QTT/ECCMCIUE  PONTIFICES  ROMANI  TRADIDERINT  VEL  THADITtTRI  SINT,  8INGITLA 
NECE8SE  E8T  ET  TENEHE  JTJDICIO  STABILI  COMPREHENSA  ET  PALAM,  QCOTIES  RES  PO8- 
TULAVERIT,  PROFITERI  AC  XOMINATIM  DE  IIS  QUAS  LIBERTATES  VOCANT  NOVISSIMO  TEMPORE 
QTT^RSITAS  OPORTET  APOSTOLIC*  SEDI8  STARE  JUDICIO  ET  ftUOD  IPSA  SENSERIT  IDEM  BENTIM 

SINOULOS,  etc. 

APPENDIX   VIII 
He  condemns  himself  to  understand  nothing  from  the  preaching  of  Jesus  who 


384  APPENDIX 

fails  to  set  it  over  against  the  Messianic  hopes  to  which  it  responded,  and  within  their 
framework.  In  the  last  two  centuries  before  the  Christian  era  a  very  curious  apoc- 
alyptic chronology  had  been  elaborated  in  the  midst  of  Judaism.  The  last  period 
of  the  world's  history  was  to  be  inaugurated  by  the  reappearance  of  the  prophet 
Elijah  and  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  All  the  New  Testament  views  of  the  future 
presuppose  this  chronology.  Jesus  made  no  exception  in  this  respect.  Otherwise  he 
could  not  have  believed  himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  nor  have  announced  the  Messianic 
kingdom  as  shortly  to  appear.  Matt  iii.  1-12,  iv.  14-16,  v.  1-10,  vii.  13,  21-23,  viii. 
11-13,  xi.  12-15,  xvi.  13-28,  xvii.  11-13,  xix.  27-30,  xxi.  SSff,  xxiv.  3,  15,  29-31,  37,  xxv. 
1-13,  31-46,  xxvi.  64.  Cf.  parallel  passages  in  the  other  Gospels.  See  also  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  John  v.  25,  xiv.  28,  xvi.  16-23.  It  was  a  general  belief  that  the  age 
then  present,  &  aluv  ofrroj,  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  that  the  future  age,  6  a.luv  /*A- 
\uv,  was  about  to  begin. 

APPENDIX  IX 

The  word  6rxXi;<rla,  church,  is  found  only  twice  upon  the  lips  of  Jesus  and  in 
only  one  Gospel,  Matt.  xvi.  18,  xviii,  17.  Now  these  two  texts  certainly  belong  to  the 
last  revision,  to  the  last  Greek  working  over  of  our  Gospel  of  Matthew,  which  at 
the  earliest  dates  from  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  of  the  second  century.  The 
second  of  these  texts  is  therefore  not  more  authoritative  than  the  first;  but  it  creates 
no  great  difficulty,  because  the  word  "  church  "  here  signifies  simply  the  assembly  of 
the  brethren,  the  Christian  synagogue.  Only,  the  fact  of  a  disciplinary  procedure 
so  formally  established  discloses  an  origin  poster io.  to  Jesus,  and  a  certain  duration 
of  ecclesiastical  life.  (Cf.  2  Cor.  xiii.  1,  2;  1  Cor.  v.  IS;  1  Tim.  v.  19.)  Of  far  other 
significance  is  the  text  of  Matt.  xvi.  18.  It  is  the  famous  Tit  es  Petrut:  "Thou  art 
Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it."  This  text  is  wanting  in  the  parallel  passages  of  Mark  and  Luke, 
and  this  omission  is  incomprehensible  if  these  Evangelists  had  found  it  in  the  first 
logia  of  Matthew  or  the  first  apostolic  tradition  of  Peter,  which  Mark  is  said  to  have 
reproduced.  Such  a  declaration  is  absolutely  incomprehensible  in  the  totality  and 
the  internal  coherence  of  the  Messianic  teaching  of  Jesus.  Furthermore  it  does  not 
appear  until  nearly  sixty  or  seventy  years  after  his  death,  at  which  time  the  ecclesi- 
astical legend  as  to  the  functions  and  the  primacy  of  Peter  had  begun  to  be  formed. 
Here  we  have  its  first  bud.  The  Catholic  theory  of  the  Church  is  made  to  rest 
definitively  upon  a  play  upon  words,  made  early,  no  doubt,  with  reference  to  the  sur- 
name given  by  Jesus  to  Peter,  and  the  apostolic  work  by  him  accomplished.  Vide  A. 
Reville,  "  Jesus  de  Nazareth,"  1897,  ii.  p.  220,  499. 


APPENDIX  X 

No  single  apostle  concerned  himself  with  what  we  call  posterity;  none  wrote  a 
line,  prepared  a  liturgy,  founded  an  institution,  ecclesiastic  or  other,  for  the  future. 


APPENDIX  386 

The  future  was  closed  to  them.  They  believed  themselves  to  be  living  in  the  last  days 
of  the  world.  A  great  number  of  things  which  surprise  us  in  their  conduct  or  their 
ideas,  community  of  goods,  indifference  to  persecutions  and  menaces,  disdain  even 
of  marriage  and  other  earthly  blessings,  are  intelligible  in  the  light  of  their  apoc- 
alyptic hopes.  Acts  ii.  1;  Thess.  iv.  15-17;  2  Thess.  ii.  1-12;  GaL  L  4;  1  Cor.  vii.  29, 
xv.  51,  52,  xvi.  22;  Rom.  viii.  17-25;  Col.  iii.  1-4;  Phil.  Hi.  11,  iv.  5;  Heb.  i.  2;  Jas.  iv. 
7,  8;  1  Pet  i.  5,  v.  4,  10;  3  Pet  ui.  8-11;  1  John  ii.  18;  Rev.  i.  1,  3,  xxiL  7,  12,  20. 


APPENDIX  XI 

Never,  in  the  New  Testament,  is  the  conception  of  the  Church  confused  with  that 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  word,  iKxX^a-la,  the  Greek  translation  of  ^np 
°r  mVt  nrs*  designated  particular  groups  of  believers  (Rom.  xvi.  4,  5,  16;  1  Cor.  i. 
2,  iv.  17,  vii.  17,  xi.  18,  etc.),  then  the  totality  of  these  groups  considered  as  the  body 
of  Christ,  animated  by  his  spirit,  continuing  his  preaching  and  his  sufferings,  to  be 
glorified  with  him  in  the  day  of  his  appearing. 

In  the  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Colossians  the  notion  of  the  Church  is 
still  farther  idealised  till  it  becomes  a  sort  of  metaphysical  or  Gnostic  entity,  destined 
to  manifest  in  visible  manner  the  plenitude  of  the  life  of  Christ,  as  Christ  manifested 
the  plenitude  of  the  life  of  God  (ir\jp<aiM  rov  XpurroO).  Eph.  i.  22,  23,  iii.  10, 
21,  iv.  12-16,  v.  23-27,  32;  Col.  i.  18,  24.  Cf.  ii.  10. 

APPENDIX  XII 

This  tendency  of  the  ideal  Church  to  translate  itself  into  fact  in  the  single  and 
well-ordered  constitution  of  a  visible  Church  is  very  apparent  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
which  make  the  transition  in  the  early  years  of  the  second  century  between  the 
apostolic  communities  dominated  by  inspiration  and  the  Catholic  Church  about  to 
appear.  Apostle  and  prophet  were  to  be  replaced  by  the  bishop,  and  the  communion 
of  the  Spirit  by  obedience  to  the  rule  of  faith.  1  Tim.  iii.  1-7,  15,  iv.  6ff.;  2  Tim. 
i.  13,  ii.  1,  iii.  14ff.;  Tit.  i.  5ff. 

APPENDIX  XIII 

In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  Paul's  Epistles  Antioch  and  Jerusalem  already 
appear,  each  as  the  rival  metropolis  of  a  Christianity  of  very  different  physiognomy 
and  tendency.  Upon  James  and  his  predominant  part  in  the  formation  of  the  Jerusa- 
lem church  see  Acts  xv.  13ff.,  xxi.  18;  Gal.  ii.  9,  12  (rtvii  diri  'IaK<i/3ou  );  Clementine 
Homilies,  "Letter  from  Peter  to  James";  Hegesippus  in  Eusebius,  H.  E.  II.  23. 
This  office  of  head  of  the  church  helps  us  to  understand  why  Josephus  mentions 
James's  condemnation  and  martyrdom.  It  was  an  event  for  the  entire  city  (Ant 
xx.  9,  1). 

APPENDIX  XIV 
The  conflict  between  Peter  and  Paul  in  the  church  at  Antioch  was  a  veritable 


386  APPENDIX 

scandal  for  the  Fathers  of  the  Church.  We  see. by  the  counterpart  of  Paul's  story 
in  the  Clementine  Homilies  what  a  din  it  made,  and  what  bitternesses  it  left  in 
Ebionite  Christian  circles.  To  do  away  with  the  scandal  Clement  of  Alexandria 
advanced  the  theory  that  Paul's  adversary  at  Antioch  was  not  one  of  the  Twelve, 
but  a  man  of  like  name,  a  Cephas  who  was  only  one  of  the  Seventy  disciples 
(Eusebius,  H.  E.  I.  12).  Jerome  gravely  says  that  at  bottom  Peter  and  Paul  were 
not  dissentient,  but  in  perfect  accord.  They  had  simply  resolved  to  act  a  little  play, 
before  agreed  upon,  to  enlighten  the  Judaisers,  and  Peter,  out  of  humility,  had 
accepted  the  part  of  devil's  advocate.  Upon  which  Augustine  protests  in  the  name 
of  the  sincerity  of  the  sacred  writers,  and  prefers  to  confess  a  weakness  in  Peter. 
The  history  of  Catholic  exegesis  of  the  text  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  extremely 
curious. 

APPENDIX  XV 

Gal.  iii.  6-14;  1  Cor.  ix.  8ff.;  Rom.  iii.  25;  Heb.  v.,  vii.,  ix.;  Clement  of  Rome, 
1  Cor.  40.  Assimilation  between  the  Levitical  worship  and  hierarchy  on  one  side,  and 
Catholic  worship  and  clergy  on  the  other,  marches  rapidly  from  the  beginning  to  the 
close  of  the  second  century.  From  the  time  of  Tertullian  the  name  sacerdos,  Gen- 
tile and  Jew  in  origin,  but  not  Christian,  passes  current  to  designate  the  bishops  and 
elders  of  the  earlier  times.  The  meaning  of  sacerdos  even  becomes  the  same  as  the 
word  priest,  which  has  an  entirely  different  origin  and  at  first  designated  an  entirely 
different  function,  that  of  elder  or  senior.  Diestel,  "  Die  Geschichte  des  A.  T.  in  der 
Christlichen  Kirche,"  1869. 

APPENDIX  XVI 

Irenseus,  "Adv.  Haer.,"  iii.  24:  In  ecclesia  dispostta  e»t  communicatio  Christi,  id 
est  spiritus  sanctus  et  scala  adscensionis  ad  Deum.  In  ecclesia  enim  posuit  Dent 
apostolos,  prophetas,  doctores  et  universam  reliquam  operationem  Spiritus,  cuju» 
non  sunt  participes  omnes,  qui  non  currunt  ad  Ecclesiam  sed  semetipsos  fraudant  a 
vita.  .  .  .  Ubi  enim  Ecclesia,  ubi  et  spiritus  Dei  et  ubi  spiritus  Dei  illic  Ecclesia, 
et  omnis  gratia.  The  thought  of  Irenaeus  still  maintains  a  certain  equilibrium  between 
the  Church,  criterion  of  the  Spirit,  and  the  Spirit,  criterion  of  the  Church,  and  still 
permits  up  to  a  certain  point  the  judging  of  the  Church  by  the  truth  of  the  Spirit 
as  well  as  the  judging  of  the  Spirit  by  the  authority  of  the  Church.  It  is  a  moment 
of  transition  between  Justin  Martyr — who  making  faith  in  Christ  as  logos  of  God 
the  sign  that  one  belongs  to  the  Christian  Church,  included  with  it  even  pagan 
philosophers  like  Socrates  and  Heraclitus  (1st  Apol.  46) — and  Cyprian,  who  made 
connection  with  the  visible  Church  the  sign  of  Christian  faith.  "  De  Unit  Eccl.,"  4ff. 

APPENDIX  XVII 

Vide  Tertullian,  M  De  praescriptione  Haereticorum."  Vincent  de  Lerins,  "  Com- 
monitorium  pro  Cath.  Fidei  Antiquitate  et  Unlversitate  adv.  Profanas  Omnium 


APPENDIX  387 

Haeres.  Novitates."  Bellarmine,  "  De  Verbo  Dei."  R.  Simon:  "Hist.  crit.  des  prin- 
cipaux  commentateurs  du  N.  T.,"  1693.  Bossuet,  "  Hist,  des  Variations."  "  Confer- 
ence avec  Claude."  "  Avertissements  aux  Protestants."  "  Defense  de  la  Tradition 
et  des  Saints-Peres."  Moehler,  "  Symbolik,"  9th  edition,  1884.  Newman,  "  Essay 
on  the  Development  of  the  Christ.  Doctrine,"  1848.  Perrone,  "  Praelect.  Theologicae," 
t.  i.  and  ii.  18.  J.  Pedezert,  "Le  temoignage  des  Peres,"  1892.  Thiersch,  "  Vor- 
lesungen  lib.  Katholicismus  u.  Protestantismus,"  2d.  edition,  1848.  F.  C.  Bauer,  "  Der 
Gegensatz  des  Kath.  u.  Protest.,"  1836.  Holtzmann,  "  Kanon  u.  Tradition,"  1859. 
K.  Hase,  "  Handb.  der  ev.  Polemik,"  5th  edition,  1891. 

LITERATURE:  I.  On  the  Catholic  Conception  of  the  Church:  Cyprian,  "De  Uni- 
tate  Ecclesiae."  Augustine,  "  De  Civitate  Dei."  Bossuet,  "  Sermon  on  the  Unity  of 
the  Church."  "  Discourse  on  Universal  History,"  Part  Second,  16.  Bellarmine,  "  De 
Ecclesia  Militante."  Catechismus  Romanus.  Perrone,  "  Praelectiones  Theologicae," 
torn.  I  and  V.  Acta  Concilii  Vaticani,  "Constitutio  de  Ecclesia,"  1870.  Leo  XIII, 
"Encycl.  de  Unitate  Ecclesiae." 

II.  On  the  Messianic  Expectation*  of  Jesus  and  Hit  First  Disciples :  E.  Reuss, 
"  History  of  Christian  Theology  in  the  Apostolic  Age."  T.  Colani,  "  Jesus  Christ 
et  les  croyances  messianiques  de  son  temps."  A.  Wabnitz,  "  La  notion  du  Royaume 
des  cieux  dans  la  pens£e  de  Jesus."  A.  Immer,  "  Theologie  des  Neuen  Testaments." 
C.  Weizsecker,  "  Das  apost.  Zeitalter."  Baldensperger,  "  Das  Selbstbewusstsein 
Jesu,"  2d  edition.  Joh.  Weiss,  "  Die  Predigt  Jesu  vom  Reiche  Gottes."  Eug.  Ehr- 
hardt,  "  Der  Grundcharakter  der  Ethik  Jesu  im  Verhaeltniss  zu  den  messianischen 
Hoffnungen  seines  Volkes  und  zu  seinem  eigenen  Messiasbewusstsein."  C.  Bruston, 
"La  vie  future  d'apres  saint  Paul"  (with  supplements).  H.  Holtzmann,  "Lehrbuch 
der  neutestamentlichen  Theologie."  Edm.  Stapfer,  "  Jesus  Christ  during  his  Min- 
istry." "  The  Death  and  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ."  Fred  Krop,  "  La  pens6e  de 
Jesus  sur  la  Royaume  de  Dieu"  (see  the  bibliography,  pp.  7-14).  E.  Mencgoz,  "Le 
salut,  d'apres  1'enseignement  de  J£sus-Christ."  H.  Wendt,  "  The  Teachings  of 
Jesus,"  2d  edition.  Wilfred  Monod,  "  L'Esperance  Chrdtienne,"  2  vols. 


APPENDIX  XVIII 

Concil.  Tr.  Sess.  IV.  Decret  de  canon.  Scripturis.  8.  Synodus  hoc  sibi  perpetuo 
ante  oculos  proponent,  ut,  sublatis  erroribus,  puritas  ipsa  evangelii  in  ecclesia  con- 
tervetur  .  .  .  perspiciensque  hanc  veritatem  et  disciplinary  contineri  in  librit 
tcriptis  et,  sine  scripto,  traditionibus,  quce  ex  ipsiu»  Christi  ore  ab  apottolis  acceptce, 
out  ab  ipsis  apostolis,  Spiritu  Sancto  dictante,  quasi  per  manus  traditce,  ad  not  usque 
percenerunt ;  orthodoxorum  patrum  exempla  secuta,  omnes  libros  tarn  V,  quam  N.  T. 
necnon  traditiones  ipsas,  turn  ad  fidem  turn  ad  mores  pertinentes,  tanquam  vel  ore 
tenus  a  Christo,  vel  a  Spiritu  8.  dictatas,  et  continua  successione  in  ecclesia  catholica 
conservator,  pari  pietatis  affectu  ac  reverentia  suscipit  et  veneratur. 


388  APPENDIX 

Though  the  two  authorities,  of  Scripture  and  of  tradition,  are  put  theoretically 
upon  the  same  line,  the  first  does  in  fact  always  stand  in  subordination  to  the  second. 
Sess.  IV,  Decret.  de  edit,  et  usu  sanct.  Litterarum. 

That  the  Church  by  its  tradition  is  mistress  of  the  text  of  Scripture  as  of  its 
interpretation  is  proved  by  the  decision  of  the  same  council  touching  St.  Jerome's 
translation  of  the  Vulgate.  The  same  Session  and  Decree:  S.  Synodus  statuit  et 
declarat,  ut  hcec  ipsa  vetus  et  vulgata  editio,  quce  longo  tot  soeculorum  usu  in  ipsa 
ecclesia  probata  est,  in  publicis  lectionibus,  disputationibus,  prcedicationibut,  et  expo- 
gilionibus  pro  authentica  habeatur,  et  ut  nemo  earn,  rejicere,  quovis  prcetextu,  audeat 
vel  prcesumat. 

APPENDIX  XIX 

No  one  will  here  adduce  Mark  xvi.  16,  which  is  part  of  a  supplement  to  the  Second 
Gospel,  entirely  foreign  to  the  primitive  work.  If  Jesus  uttered  this  saying,  it  is 
inexplicable  that  no  apostle,  no  New  Testament  book,  alludes  to  it.  It  will  further- 
more be  observed  that  baptism  is  rather  presupposed  as  already  existing  than  pre- 
scribed as  something  new  in  the  words  which  Matthew  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Risen  Lord.  See  Conybeare,  Zeitschr.  f.  neutest.  Wissenschaft,  1901,  pp.  285-288. 

From  John  iii.  22-26,  curiously  corrected  in  iv.  2,  it  appears  that  there  was  not 
unanimity  as  to  the  fact  whether  Jesus  had  himself  baptised  or  simply  ordered  that 
those  who  came  to  him  should  be  baptised.  It  seemed  necessary  to  connect  the 
apostolic  custom  with  Jesus,  and  yet  they  hardly  knew  how.  Jesus  never  spoke  of 
any  other  baptism  than  that  of  suffering  and  death.  Mark  x.  38  and  paral. 


APPENDIX  XX 

Acts  viii.  12-24,  x.  44-48,  xix.  1-6.  It  appears  from  these  texts:  1,  that  baptism 
with  water  was  considered  incomplete  without  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit;  2,  that  the 
effusion  of  the  Spirit  came  by  the  imposition  of  hands.  In  the  eyes  of  Paul  baptism 
of  the  Spirit  alone  made  men  Christians,  by  uniting  them  to  Christ  and  to  his  body, 
which  is  the  Church.  Expressions  like  that  of  Titus  iii.  5,  &A  fovrpov  iraXtyyeiwfaj  <tal 
dvaKaLvufffus  iri/etf/xaroj  ayiov,  and  John  iii.  5,  HLV  pi]  nt  yevmqOji  ii-  vdaros  ical  irvevfjMrot, 
(cf.  xix.  34,  35,  and  1  John  v.  6),  although  they  do  not  yet  materialise  baptism,  yet 
assimilate  water  and  the  Spirit,  and  mark  a  point  in  the  evolution  of  the  notion  of 
baptism. 

APPENDIX  XXI 

It  seems  evident  that  Paul  in  Rom.  vi.  1-6;  Gal.  iii.  27;  1  Cor.  vi.  11,  x.  2;  and 
even  in  Eph.  v.  26,  has  a  symbolic  conception  of  baptism.  This  becomes  clear  from  a 
close  study  of  Col.  ii.  11-12,  precisely  parallel.  It  is  faith  which  unites  us  to  Christ 
in  baptism  and  raises  us  up  with  him,  faith  in  the  power  of  God  who  raised  him  from 
the  dead;  and  we  find  the  decisive  proof  that  baptism  is  only  a  symbol  in  verse  11, 


APPENDIX  389 

where  the  apostle  makes  use  of  the  figure  of  circumcision  to  express  the  same  truth: 
lv  $  K&l  ir«pter/ii)^^r«  TtpiTojij}  dx«poiroii$Tv  iv  ry  diraed&rct  rou  <rw/j.a.To<;  rijf  <rop/c6s,  tv  r% 
wepiTonv  roO  XpttrToO. 

The  affirmation  of  1  Pet.  iii.  21  is  also  thoroughly  spiritual:  "  Baptism  doth  now 
save  you,  not  the  putting  away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  interrogation  of  a 
good  conscience  toward  God." 

But  even  in  the  apostolic  age  we  find  traces  of  a  contrary  conception  of  baptism, 
as  the  indispensable  condition  and  even  the  cause  of  salvation.  Paul  does  not  praise, 
but  neither  does  he  blame  those  who  baptise  for  the  benefit  of  the  dead  (1  Cor.  xv. 
99),  and  he  draws  from  the  practice  an  argument  for  the  resurrection.  The  rite 
was  therefore  believed  to  be  necessary  for  those  who  would  have  part  in  the  resur- 
rection, at  least  so  far  as  the  body  was  concerned.  Fifty  years  later  the  Epistle  of 
Barnabas  said:  "  Its  water  is  faithful,"  and  again,  "We  descend  into  the  water,  full 
of  sins  and  stains,  and  we  come  up  from  it  laden  with  fruits  in  our  heart."  And 
Hennas,  "  Vis."  iii.  3:  r/  fail  vn&v  8iA  vSarot  tff<I>0->i,  KO.I  <ru6jfftTai.  Justin  taught 
that  to  be  baptised  was  synonymous  with  being  regenerated,  1  Ap.  61.  With  Ter- 
tullian  the  Roman  Catholic  idea  of  baptism  is  well-nigh  reached:  "De  Baptismo,"  3. 


APPENDIX  XXII 

Rom.  vi.  3-5;  1  Cor.  i.  13;  Gal.  iii.  27;  Acts.  ii.  38,  viii.  16,  x.  48,  xix.  5.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  trace  of  any  other  formula.  Cyprian  remarked  this  peculiarity  and  gave 
its  true  explanation.  Epist.  LXXIII.  17,  18.  The  simple  formula  was  employed  in 
the  case  of  Jews,  who  already  knew  the  Father  and  had  no  need  to  be  baptised  in 
his  name.  The  Roman  Catechism  seems  also  to  admit  the  fact,  and  explain  it  by  the 
purpose  of  the  apostle  to  give  more  lustre  to  the  name  and  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 
"  Oe  Baptismo,"  15,  16.  Protestant  exegetes  have  been  more  timid  or  less  candid. 


APPENDIX  XXIII 

Vide  A.  Harnack,  art.  "  Apostol.  Symbolum,"  Encyl.  von  Herzog  u.  Hauck,  3d 
edition,  vol.  i.  The  same,  "  Dogmengeschichte,"  vol.  i.  (English  translation).  Cas- 
pari,  "  Ungedruckte  .  .  .  Quellen  zur  Gesch.  des  Taufsymbols,"  1866,  1869,  1875, 
1879.  Hahn,  "  Biblioth.  der  Symbole."  Zezschwitz,  "  System  d.  Katechetik."  Swain- 
son,  "  The  Nicene  and  Apostolic  Creeds."  M.  Nicolas,  "  Le  Symbole  des  ap.  Essai 
Hist."  Coquerel,  "  Histoire  du  credo."  E.  Chaponniere,  Art.  "  Symbole  des  ap."  in 
Encyl.  des  sc.  relig.,  vol.  i.  (McGiffert,  "  The  Apostles'  Creed,"  1902,  pp.  7,  100.) 


APPENDIX  XXIV 

Gnosticism  had  a  decisive  part  in  the  definition  of  the  Catholic  faith.    Most  of  the 
articles  of  the  symbol  are  directed  against  it,  and  it  can  be  historically  understood 


390  APPENDIX 

only  in  the  light  of  this  controversy.  The  unity  of  God,  the  affirmation  that  the 
Father  is  also  the  Creator  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  are  the  contradiction  of  the 
dualism  or  the  emanationism  of  the  Gnosis.  The  description  of  the  Christ  as  the 
only  Son  of  God  is  a  protest  against  a  plurality  of  mediators.  His  birth,  at  once  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  and  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  his  crucifixion  under  Pontius  Pilate,  his  death 
and  burial,  are  noted  in  order  to  affirm  the  reality  of  the  incarnation,  the  passion, 
and  the  death  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  so  to  cut  short  all  Docetism.  The  last  judgment, 
the  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh,  are  due  to  the 
same  cause.  This  interpretation  may  not  be  doubted  when  we  read  Ignatius,  "  Ad. 
Magn.,"  11;  "Ad.  Ephes.,"  7,  18;  "Ad.  Trail.,"  9;  "Ad.  Smyrn.,"  1,  and  Polycarp, 
"Ad  Philipp.,"  2  and  7,  etc.  Nothing  can  better  show  how  everywhere  and  always 
tradition,  even  where  most  objective  in  appearance,  is  dependent  upon  the  circum- 
stances in  the  midst  of  which  it  arises.  The  history  of  the  Oriental  churches,  in 
their  richer  and  more  varying  rules  of  faith,  bears  still  more  plainly  the  marks  of  suc- 
cessive theological  controversies.  We  may,  so  to  speak,  date  each  one  of  them  by 
means  of  its  evident  pre-occupations. 


APPENDIX  XXV 

Eusebius:  H.  E.    III.  39:  Papias  wrote:  Ofa  ffKviiffw  84  <rot  ical  bra  TOT*  rapa  TWK 

Trpevfivrtpuv  KaXus  t^adov  Kid  /caXws  tp.vrmbvtvffa  <ruwcararcl£cu  Tats  £p/x?;ve{ais  6kia/3e(3aioi5/iiei>os 
\nrtp  afrruv  &\j$ciav.  .  .  .  .  tl  8j  irov  ical  irapriicoXovOrjicibs  ra  TOW  ir  peer  pvr  spoil  $\0oi,  roi>t 
ru>v  vpefffivripuv  avticpivov  \6yovs-  rl  'AvSptas  $  rl  H£rpos  fl-rev  1)  rt  4>f\t7nroj  ^  rl  Gw/xas  ^ 
'IdV«/3o»  $  rl  'Itadw-qs  $  MaT0atoj  ....  &  re  'Kputrluv  ical  8  Tpea/Si/repoi  'ludvrrp,  ol  rov 
Kvplov  (jM0T}ral,  Xtyowiv.  Ov  y&p  Td  6c  rav  f)tp\lw>>,  TWTOVT&V  fte  &$t\elv  irre\dfi.fiavot',  foot 
Ti  TTopd  fiiirijs  <f>wvr}t  KO.I  /jLevotffrjs. 

Tertullian,  "De  Praescript.  Haeretic.,"  37:  Si  hcec  ita  se  habent,  ut  veritas  nobit 
adjudicetur,  quicumque  in  ea  regula  incedimus ,  quam  ecclesia  ab  apostolii,  apottoli 
a  Christo,  Christus  a  Deo  tradidit,  constat  ratio  propositi  nostri  definientis  non  etse 
admittendos  hcereticot  ad  itmendam  de  Scripturis  provocationem,  quo*  fine  Scripturit 
probamus  ad  Scripturas  non  pertinere.  It  is  the  reasoning  of  a  jurist,  not  of  a  his- 
torian. The  enacted  dogma  is  put  in  the  place  of  interrogated  history. 


APPENDIX  XXVI 

Irenaeus,  Ibid.,  III.  1,  3.  Et  habemug  enumerare  eo»  qui  ab  apo»toli»  inttituti  sunt, 
episcopi  in  ecclesiis  et  successores  eorum  usque  ad  nos.  Then  follows  a  list  of  bishops 
of  Rome  from  Peter  and  Linus  to  Eleutherus.  A  little  earlier  Hegesippus,  who  was 
most  concerned  about  the  episcopal  successions  for  the  same  reason  of  legitimacy, 
drew  up  another  list  of  which  we  have  not  the  whole  (Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV.  22).  Similar 
lists,  varying  irreconcilably  as  to  names,  chronology,  and  length  of  episcopate,  are 
found  in  Eusebius  ("  Chronicle"  and  "  Eccl.  Hist."),  Hippolytus,  Rufinus,  Augustine, 


APPENDIX  391 

the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  Liber  Pontiflcalis,  etc.  It  needs  only  to  compare  these 
lists  for  a  moment,  to  perceive  that  they  were  made  from  traditional  or  legendary 
elements,  diversely  combined,  until  at  last  papal  authority  officially  consecrated  one 
which  has  no  more  verisimilitude  than  any  of  the  others.  See  Lipsius,  "  Die  Papst- 
verzeichnisse  des  Eusebius,"  etc.;  "Chronologic  d.  roemisch.  Bischoefe,"  etc.  A. 
Harnack,  "  Chronologic  d.  altchristl.  Litteratur."  "  Die  aeltesten  Bischofslisten." 


APPENDIX  XXVII 

Being  the  double  testimony  of  the  same  apostolate,  tradition  and  the  Scriptures 
were  in  the  eyes  of  Ircnaeus  of  equal  authority,  "  Adv.  Haer.,"  III.  1,  1.  Tertullian 
("De  Praes.  Haeret,"  29  and  38),  Athanasius  ("Oratio  cont.  Arian.,"  1,  8;  "Adv. 
Gent,"  1),  Augustine  ("  De  Doctrina  Christ.,"  i.  37,  ii.  9;  "Ad  Hieronymum  Epist.," 
19)  energetically  affirmed  that  all  that  is  necessary  to  the  proclamation  of  the  truth 
and  the  edification  of  faith  is  contained  in  the  Scriptures.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
favour  of  tradition,  Chrysostom,  "  Ad  Thess.,"  ii.  15.  Epiphanius,  "  Haer.,"  61,  6. 
John  of  Damascus,  "  De  Fide  Orthod.,"  iv.  12. 


APPENDIX  XXVIII 

Tertullian,  "De  Virg.,"  vol.  i.:  Dominus  noster  veritatem  te,  non  comuetudinem, 
cognominavit.  The  African  church,  up  to  and  including  Augustine,  often  repeated 
this  watchword.  To  the  Roman  bishop  Stephen,  who  urged  against  him  the  tradition 
of  his  church,  Cyprian  replied  (Epist.  74,  2),  Unde  e»t  ista  traditio?  .  .  .  Ea  enim 
facienda  ease  quce  scripta  sunt  Deut  te»tatur  et  prcemonet  ad  Jesum  Nave  dicens:  Non 
recedat  liber  legit  hujus  ex  ore  tuo  .  .  .  ut  observes  facere  omnia  quce  scripta  sunt 
in  eo.  And  in  chapter  3:  Item  Dominus  in  evangelio  increpans  similiter  dicit: 
Rejicitis  mandatum  Dei,  ut  traditionem  veetram  statuatit.  And  in  chapter  9:  Con- 
tuetudo  sine  veritate  vetuttat  error  is  ett.  Epist.  71,  3:  Non  ett  de  contuetudint 
pratscribendum  ted  ratione  vicendum. 


APPENDIX  XXIX 

The  exact  number  of  ecumenical  councils  is  not  known.  Bellarmine  counts  eighteen, 
excluding,  in  the  West,  those  of  Basel  and  Constance.  The  Greek  Church  recognises 
only  seven.  Even  these  were  disputed  by  certain  doctors.  Gregory  Nazianzen 
recognised  only  one,  the  first,  that  of  Nicaea,  and  said  he  was  ashamed  of  having  sat 
in  the  bad  company  of  the  second,  that  of  Chalcedon.  The  fifth  and  seventh  pro- 
claimed ecumenical  councils  to  be  infallible  organs  of  tradition. 

As  for  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  it  is  known  that  Abelard,  in  his  famous  "Sic 
et  non,"  amused  himself  by  bringing  to  light  their  almost  infinite  contradictions. 
See  also  Dailte,  "  De  1'emploi  des  S.  Peres,"  1632.  Rich  Simon.,  "Hist.  Crit.  des 


392  APPENDIX 

commentateurs  du  N.  T.,"  1693.  Reply  of  Bossuet,  "  Defense  de  la  tradition  et  des 
S.  Peres,"  published  in  1753  and  completed  by  F.  Lachet  in  1864.  Pedezert,  "Le 
Temoignage  des  Peres,"  1892.  As  for  the  ecclesiastical  practices,  modern  Catholic 
doctors  have  lost  themselves  in  subtile  distinctions  between  generals  and  particulars, 
those  which  concern  dogma  and  those  which  touch  only  upon  discipline,  those  which 
date  from  the  apostles  and  those  which  are  of  human  origin;  those  permanent  and 
obligatory,  those  human  and  variable.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  harmony  is  never 
found  in  these  distinctions. 

APPENDIX  XXX 

Bellarmlne  found  the  practical  solution.  He  closes  his  chapter  on  the  criteria  of 
tradition  by  this  triumphant  conclusion  (KDe  Verbo  Dei  Scripto  et  Non  Scripto," 
Lib.  IV.,  cap.  9):  At  nunc  de  fecit  certa  successio  in  omnibus  ecclesiig  apostolicis, 
prceterquam  in  Romana,  et  ideo  ex  testimonio  hujus  golius  ecclesiae  sumi  potest  certum 
argumentum  ad  probandas  apostolicas  traditiones.  This  is  why  every  question  must 
be  referred  back  to  the  Roman  Church  alone. 


APPENDIX  XXXI 

Perrone,  III.:  Ecclesias  magisterio  subordinata  eat  Scriptura  et  traditio,  cum  ejut 
tantum  sit  turn  de  veris  ac  genuinis  Scripturis  earumque  legitimo  sensu,  turn  de 
veris  divinisque  traditionibus  judicare. 

H.  M.  Pezanni,  Codex  S.  cathol.  Romanae  Ecclesiae,  Can.  33:  Pontifex  Romanus  jura 
omnia  in  scrinio  pectoris  sui  censetur  habere.  It  has  been  possible  even  to  maintain 
that  documents  notoriously  unauthentic,  like  the  "  False  Decretals  "  or  the  apocryphal 
text  of  1  John  v.  7  about  the  three  witnesses,  having  been  admitted  by  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  have  received  from  that  decision  a  sort  of  "  supernatural  authori- 
zation." M.  Schreben,  "  Handb.  d.  Kathol.  Dogm."  Freiburg,  1873,  vol.  i.  No.  356. 


APPENDIX  XXXII 

Vide  J.  ReVille,  "  Les  Origines  de  1'episcopat."  E.  Hatch,  "  The  Organisation  of 
the  Early  Christian  Churches."  Words  change  in  meaning  as  institutions  are  modi- 
fied. With  respect  to  none  is  this  more  true  than  to  the  word  tirl<ricoirot.  We 
shall  comprehend  nothing  in  history  so  long  as  we  persist  in  reading  the  documents 
of  the  past  through  the  spectacles  put  before  our  eyes  by  the  ideas  of  the  present. 


APPENDIX   XXXIII 

The  directing  members  of  the  church  of  Corinth  are  at  that  time  called 
and   ijyovfj.evoL     (1,  3),  and  it  appears  that  we  must  make  a  distinction  between 


APPENDIX  393 

them.  The  former,  more  numerous,  formed  the  Senate,  the  deliberative  council  of  the 
community;  the  latter,  in  whom  we  must  recognise  the  "episcopoi,"  were  the  executive 
power  of  the  Senate,  the  directors  and  administrators  delegated  to  preside  over 
public  worship  and  over  assemblies  and  the  administration  of  the  common  business. 
Nothing  is  now  needed  but  to  pass  from  the  plural  to  the  single  episcopate. 


APPENDIX    XXXIV 

Gal.  1.  17,  1.  Paul  does  not  claim  for  himself  alone,  by  some  exceptional  title,  the 
name  of  apostle.  He  applies  it  to  Silvanus  as  well  as  to  himself,  according  to  1  Thess. 
ii.  6,  to  Barnabas  in  1  Cor.  iv.  5,  6;  to  Apollos  as  to  Cephas  in  1  Cor.  iv.  6,  9.  He 
cites  Andronicus  and  Junias  as  Mffiinoi  tv  rots  dwo<TT6Xotj,  Rom.  xvi.  7.  And  let 
no  one  say  that  Paul  thus  enlarged  the  use  of  the  word  in  a  personal  interest.  No, 
the  word  was  thus  used  before  the  conversion  of  Paul.  Thus  James  became  an 
apostle  after  the  appearance  to  him  of  the  Risen  Christ,  1  Cor.  xv.  7.  Cf.  Gal. 
i.  19.  The  same  thing  is  still  more  evident  from  1  Cor.  xv.  5,  compared  with  xv.  7. 
It  is  very  evident  that  the  words  TO«  diro<7T6Xott  ireurtv  of  verse  7  cannot  be 
referred  to  the  roa  dddtKa  of  verse  5.  Let  us  add  that  the  entire  argument 
of  Paul  to  establish  that  all  the  divine  signs  of  apostolicity  are  found  in  his  person 
and  work  would  have  no  meaning  if  the  import  of  apostolicity  had  previously  been 
restricted  to  a  fixed  number  of  persons.  The  Twelve  do  not  appear  as  forming  a 
higher  and  closed  college  until  somewhat  late  after  their  death,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  in  its  present  form  did  not  see  the  light 
before  the  year  85  or  90,  and  in  the  Revelation  of  John,  which  is  of  the  same  period. 
The  book  of  the  "  Teaching  of  the  Apostles  "  knows  the  air6(rroXot  of  the  first  times, 
going  from  church  to  church  with  the  prophets.  But  their  credit  falls  with  their 
inspiration:  ch.  xi.  However,  at  that  time  it  was  still  they  and  not  the  presbteroi 
who  performed  apostolic  functions  and  were  the  true  successors  of  the  apostles.  The 
rise  of  the  episcopal  power  soon  effected  their  final  disappearance. 


APPENDIX    XXXV 

"Teach,  of  the  Apos.,"  xv.:  "Elect  for  yourselves  therefore  bishops  and  deacons 
worthy  of  the  Lord  [etc.],  and  let  them  conduct  public  worship  in  place  of  the 
prophets  and  preachers.  Do  not  therefore  despise  them,  for  it  is  they,  with  the 
prophets  and  preachers,  whom  you  ought  to  honor."  Is  it  not  significant  that  even 
at  this  time  it  was  necessary  in  certain  churches  (rural,  no  doubt)  to  protect  the 
Influence  of  the  bishops  against  the  fame  of  inspired  itinerants? 

APPENDIX  XXXVI 

FWL  i.  1;  ef.  the  letter  of  Polycarp  to  these  very  Philippiaiw,  L  1;  Acts  xx.  1T-J8, 


394  APPENDIX 

in  which  we  see  that  Paul,  having  sent  from  Miletus  for  the  presbyteroi  of  the  church 
of  Ephesus,  told  them  that  the  Holy  Spirit  (not  he,  Paul)  had  made  them  bishops 
of  the  flock  which  had  been  confided  to  them,  Heb.  xiii.  17,  24,  where  both  classes  are 
called  -qyotnevoi  as  in  Clement  of  Rome,  1  COT.  1,  3;  1  Peter  v.  1,  where  the  writer 
calls  himself  their  fellow-elder,  <ri»/Afl-/>e(r/3i5Tepoi ;  "  Teach,  of  the  Apost.,"  xv.  Hermas, 
"  Visio,"  iii.  9 ;  Letter  of  Hadrian  to  Serv.  in  Vopisc.  Saturn.,  8.  The  sole  distinction 
which  can  be  enacted,  according  to  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  1,  3,  is  that  the  word 
presbyteroi  is  larger  than  the  word  Mgoumenoi,  in  the  sense  that  the  body  of  the 
former  comprehends  not  only  the  hegoumenoi  who  preside  at  assemblies,  but  all  who 
in  one  way  or  another  watch  over  and  participate  in  the  government  of  the  churches. 


APPENDIX  XXXVII 

S.  Jerome,  "  Ad  Titum,"  i.  7,  and  Gratian,  Decretum,  P.  I.,  D.  xcv.  5,  Olim  idem 
erat  presbyter  qui  et  episcopus.  There  is  now  no  further  argument  on  this  point. 
Where  Father  Petau  and  the  Jesuits  say  to-day  that  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  beginning  all  presbyters  were  at  the  same  time  provisionallyiconsecrated  bishops, 
it  is  a  pleasant  manner,  but  only  a  manner,  of  admitting  the  undeniable  fact  of 
identity.  Father  Perrone  also  tries  to  do  j  ustice  to  history  by  saying  that  the  proposi- 
tion, episcopi  sunt  presbyteris  superiores  jure  divino,  is  not  an  article  of  faith.  The 
Council  of  Trent,  Sess.  xxiii.  can.  6.  says,  however:  Si  quis  dicerit  in  ecclesia  catholica 
non  esse  hierarchiam  divina  ordinatione  institutam  qua  constat  ex  episcopis,  presby- 
teris et  ministris,  anathema  sit!  Whom  shall  we  believe? 


APPENDIX  XXXVIII 

Rom.  xvi.  5ff.  The  churches  of  Corinth  who  all  through  this  chapter  salute  the 
churches  of  Ephesus  are,  like  the  latter,  family  churches,  such  as  are  very  well  desig- 
nated by  the  German  word  Hauskirchen.  Cf.  1  Cor.  L  11,  xvi.  15,  19;  Acts  xviii.  7, 
xvii.  5,  xvi.  15;  Col.  iv.  15,  etc. 


APPENDIX   XXXIX 

In  the  well-known  fragment  called  the  Muratorian  Canon  we  read,  regarding  the 
book  of  Hermas :  Pastorem  vero  nuperrime  temporibus  nostris  H.  conscripsit, 
.tedente  cathedra  urbis  Romce  ecclesice  Pio  episcopo  fratre  ejus.  Where  Irenaeus  is 
not  reproducing  an  official  list,  manufactured  for  the  needs  of  the  cause,  but  speaking 
freely  and  without  precaution,  he  makes  it  very  clear  at  what  period  he  himself 
recognises  the  historicity  of  the  list;  that  is,  beyond  which  names  he  finds,  not  a 
bishop,  but  presbyteroi,  at  Rome:  Apud  Euseb.,  H.  E.  V.  24;  ol  trpo  Swrijpos  irpf<rp6- 
rcpoi,  oi  vpoffrdrres  TIJS  4i(K\rifftas  and  a  little  farther  on,  V.  24,  16:  ol  irpb  'Avucjrov 


APPENDIX  395 

APPENDIX   XL 

That  Episcopal  pretensions  are  concerned  is  made  indubitable  by  verses  9,  10: 

6  <pi\oirpuTf<jwv  oi/rwv  .  .  .  otfre  atfrij  iiriifxerat.  rods  d5e\0oi'/s  .  .  .  (the  question, 
according  to  verse  6,  is  of  foreign  brethren,  itinerant  preachers,  whom  Diotrephes 
could  not  endure  *al  roi)s  (3ov\o/j.ti>ovs  Ku\fat  ical  (K  rijt  iKK\i)<rla*  c«r/3d\Xe(.  A.  Harnack 
throws  a  fine  light  on  this  point,  "  Gesch.  d.  altchr.  Litter.,"  ii. 


APPENDIX    XLI 

John  i.  41.  It  was  John  and  Andrew  who  first  came  to  Jesus;  Peter  arrives  only 
third.  Peter  speaks  here  only  once  in  the  name  of  the  Twelve,  vi.  69.  But  Jesus 
makes  him  no  promise.  He  simply  serves  as  intermediary  between  the  multitude 
and  the  Master.  On  the  other  hand,  this  part  is  taken  by  Philip,  by  Andrew,  and  as 
to  John,  he  is  the  intermediary  between  Peter  and  Jesus,  either  his  protector  or  his 
rival,  everywhere  more  intelligent  and  more  fortunate,  xiii.  23,  24.  It  is  John  to 
whom  Jesus  in  dying  confides  his  mother  and  addresses  one  of  his  last  utterances, 
xix.  26.  Thus,  while  Peter  fled  and  denied  his  Master,  John  stands  faithful  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross.  It  is  John  who  sees  and  certifies  to  the  mystery  of  the  blood  and 
water  that  flowed  from  the  pierced  side  of  Jesus,  xix.  35.  More  swift  than  Peter, 
he  first  reaches  the'  sepulchre,  and  at  a  first  glance  he  believes,  xx.  3-8.  Finally,  it 
is  John,  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  who  first  recognises  the  Risen  One  on  the  lake 
shore,  and  points  him  out  to  Peter,  xxi.  7.  All  these  data  could  not  have  been  acumu- 
lated  without  a  purpose. 

APPENDIX    XLII 

For  the  initial  meaning  of  the  word  see  Matt.  xvi.  21;  Mark  viii.  31;  Luke  ix.  22; 
Acts  xiv.  23,  xxi.  18.  As  originally  the  charge  of  teaching,  the  munus  docendi,  did 
not  pertain  essentially  to  the  "  elders,"  but  simply  the  charge  of  guidance  and 
administration,  if  the  apostolic  preachers  formed  a  sort  of  clergy  it  may  be  said  that 
the  "elders"  were  at  first  essentially  laical. 


APPENDIX    XLIII 

In  Acts  i.  26:  tSuicav  n:\-fipovs  avroTt.  and  in  Matt,  xxviii.  and  paral.  the  word 
signifies  dice,  or  method  of  fortune-telling.  Evidently  this  is  the  primitive  meaning 
from  which  is  derived  that  of  lot  obtained  in  a  division  or  distribution  of  cures,  and 
in  consequence,  the  cure  itself.  Acts  i.  17:  r&v  K\ijpov  rijt  Sia/coWo*  TOI/TIJS.  Thence 
it  became  equivalent  to  rank,  class,  order.  Thus  Acts  xxvi.  18,  the  Gentiles  are 
called  to  receive  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  to  take  rank,  \afttTv  K\i)pov,  among 
those  who  are  sanctified  by  faith  in  Christ.  The  verb  KXi/poOtr&u,  to  be  received 
into  the  KXqpot,  had  not  at  first  the  meaning  of  being  ordained  or  consecrated 


396  APPENDIX 

priest.     It  was  applied  to  the  conversion  of  Christians  in  general.     Acts  xvii.  4; 
Eph.  i.  11,  and  still  later,  Epist.  ad  Diogn.  5,  4. 


APPENDIX   XLIV 

1  Pet.  v.  3;  Clement  of  Rome,  1  Cor.  41,  1:  &MUTTOJ  .   .   .   to  T£  ldl<? 
purrelru.     Tdyjut  =  K\ijpos. 

Eusebius,  H.  E.  V.,  10,  26:  Twice  there  is  question  of  the  xX^pos  ruv 
in  the  letter  from  the  churches  of  Vienne  and  Lyons.  For  the  order  of  widows,  of 
"  elderesses  "  or  deaconesses,  1  Tim.  v.  2-16.  Hennas,  "  Past.  Vis."  II.  4,  a  function 
attributed  to  Grapte.  Tertullian,  "  De  Virg.  vel"  9,  etc.,  vide  Zahn,  "Ignatius  u. 
seine  Zeit,"  p.  580ff. 

APPENDIX    XLV 

Tertullian  is  the  first  to  speak  of  an  ordo  eccletiatticut,  an  ordo  sacerdotalit. 
He  calls  the  bishop  sacerdos,  summits  sacerdot,  pontifex  maximut,  with  or  without 
sarcasm;  "De  Pudic.,"  21;  "De  Bapt.,"  7;  "De  Exhort.  Cast.,'H7,  etc.  From  this 
period  a  divine  reason  for  the  choice  of  this  word  KMjpot  is  sought  by  linking 
it  to  the  sacerdotal  institution  itself.  Hence  the  ingenious,  but  fantastic  explana- 
tion of  Jerome,  Epist.  52,  "Ad  Nepotianum":  Clerici  vocantur  vel  quiet  de  torte 
sunt  Domini,  vel  quia  ipse  Dominut  sors  id  ett  part  clericorum  ett  (Deut.  x.  9,  xviii. 
2).  Augustine's  explanation  is  even  less  acceptable,  Expos,  in  Psal.  Ivii.  19:  Et  clerum 
et  clericos  hinc  appellatos  puto,  quia  Matthias  torte  electut  ett  quern  primum  per 
apottolot  legimut  ordinatum  (Acts  i.  26).  The  dogma  dictated  both  the  history  and 
the  exegesis  of  the  most  learned  Fathers  of  the  Church. 


APPENDIX    XLVI 

Mark  xiv.  22,  and  paral.,  TOVT&  Ian*  TO  0-Qfj.d  fu>v.  It  is  probable  that  the  verb 
the  meaning  of  which  has  been  so  much  discussed,  was  not  expressed  in  the 
Aramaean  phrase  used  by  Jesus.  Apparently  there  was  simple  juxtaposition;  this 
bread,  my  body.  One  must  be  wholly  unacquainted  with  Oriental  languages  and  the 
usus  loquendi  of  the  prophets  in  general,  and  of  Jesus  in  particular,  to  cast  doubt 
upon  the  figurative  meaning  of  this  form  of  speech,  so  popular  and  so  luminous. 


APPENDIX    XLVII 

This  view  emerges  with  irresistible  evidence  from  the  most  ancient  liturgy  of  the 
lord's  Supper  known  to  us,  preserved  in  the  "  Teaching  of  the  Apostles."  "  For 
the  Eucharist,  proceed  thus:  First  with  the  cup  [to  begin  with  the  cup  is  highly 
original  and  conforms  to  the  Jewish  practice.  Of.  Luke  xxii.  17]:  We  render 


APPENDIX  397 

thanks  to  thee,  O  our  Father,  for  the  holy  vine  of  David  thy  servant,  which  thou 
hast  made  known  to  us  by  Jesus  thy  servant.  To  thee  be  glory  through  all  ages! 
Then,  over  the  broken  bread:  We  thank  thee,  O  our  Father,  for  the  life  and  wisdom 
which  thou  hast  made  known  to  us  by  Jesus,  thy  servant.  To  thee  be  glory  through 
all  ages!  As  this  bread  was  scattered  upon  the  mountains,  and  being  gathered, 
became  one,  so  may  thy  Church  be  gathered  into  thy  Kingdom  from  all  the  ends  of 
the  earth  (ix.  1-4).  This  liturgy  is  much  older  than  the  document  which  preserved 
it,  and  appears  to  be  of  Galilean  origin.  But  it  was  not  obligatory,  for  we  read 
immediately  after  (x.  7) :  "  As  for  the  prophets,  let  them  celebrate  the  Eucharist 
as  they  will."  In  any  case,  no  mention  is  made  either  of  the  flesh  or  the  blood,  the 
body  or  the  death  of  Jesus.  With  reference  to  the  bread  it  is  simply  said :  A  Imighty 
Master,  thou  hast  created  all  things  for  thy  name's  sake:  thou  hast  given  to  men 
food  and  drink  that  they  may  rejoice  and  give  thanks  unto  thee;  and  to  us,  in  thy 
mercy,  thou  hast  given  spiritual  food  and  drink  and  eternal  life,  by  thy  servant. 
Apparently  there  was  nothing  else  in  the  /cXd<m  TOV  aprov  which,  according  to  Acts 
ii.  42  (doubtless  reproducing  a  more  ancient  source),  was  celebrated  by  the  first 
Judeeo-Christian  community  of  Jerusalem. 


APPENDIX  XL VIII 

Irenaeus,  "Adv.  Haer.,"  iv.  17,  5.  In  the  second  century  the  doctrine  of  the 
incarnate  Logos  ruled  and  inspired  the  entire  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist.  Bread 
and  wine  were  no  longer  ordinary  bread  and  wine,  but  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  after 
the  words  of  consecration,  they  were  penetrated  by  the  vivifying  presence  of  the 
Logos  in  such  wise  that  they  rendered  immortal  the  body  that  was  fed  by  them,  as 
the  soul  is  saved  and  vivified  by  the  Logos  himself.  The  elements  of  the  Supper 
were  often  likened  to  the  flesh  and  blood  which  the  Logos  took  on  in  the  womb  of 
his  mother.  Thus  the  Eucharist  becomes  the  second  form  of  the  incarnation  of  the 
Logos. 

Justin  Martyr,  "  First.  Apol.,"  66:  o&y&pusKoivdv  Aprov  o&dt  noivbv  ir6fM  ravra  Xa/i/Sdw- 
luv,  K.T.  A.  The  bread  and  wine  thus  become  the  body  of  Christ,  and  the  bodies  which 
are  fed  on  them  become  immortal  like  him.  At  the  same  time,  this  is  not  yet  the 
dogma  of  transubstantiation,  it  is  the  mystical  and  mysterious  coexistence  of  the 
two  substances  and  two  elements,  just  as  in  the  man  Jesus  the  earthly  flesh  and  the 
heavenly  Logos  were  equally  real.  Irenaeus  well  explains  this,  iv.  18,  5. 

This  mystical  point  of  view  still  permitted  symbolical  interpretations  of  the 
Supper.  Thus  Tertullian  could  explain  the  words,  hoc  est  corpus  meum,  by  figura 
corporis  mei,  "  Adv.  Marc.,"  iv.  40,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen  were 
free  to  protest  energetically  against  a  materialistic  conception  of  the  Supper. 
"  Psedag.,"  i.  6,  47:  rb  at/M  olvot  dXAi^opetrat.  Cf.  ii.  2.  Vide  Origen  on  Matt.  xi. 
14,  boldly  applying  to  the  Supper  what  Jesus  says  of  meats  (Matt.  xv.  11):  "That 
which  enters  a  man's  mouth  can  neither  defile  nor  sanctify  him,"  and  drawing  from 
this  principle  all  its  consequences.  But  this  spiritualism  of  a  few  high  minds  WM 


898  APPENDIX 

bound  to  lose  ground.  In  the  minds  of  the  hierarchy,  and  in  popular  imagination, 
the  materialistic  conception  daily  took  deeper  root.  Forbidden  by  John  of  Damas-' 
cus,  "De  Fid.  Orth.,"  iv.  13,  it  was  proclaimed  the  faith  of  the  Church  at  the 
second  Council  of  Nicaea,  Mansi,  xiii.  p.  266.  Long  before  being  denned  by  Pas- 
chase  Radbert,  the  dogma  of  transubstantiation  existed  as  a  fact  in  the  Catholic 
tradition. 

This  dogma  permitted  the  reservation  of  the  cup  from  believers.  The  body  of 
Jesus,  flesh  and  blood,  being  entirely  in  the  host,  the  wine  became  a  superfluity.  It 
is  difficult  to  see  why  it  is  given  to  the  priests  themselves,  if  not  to  do  them  honour. 
It  is  curious  to  note  that  the  reservation  of  the  cup,  now  the  law  of  the  Roman 
Church,  had  been  condemned  as  a  culpable  heresy  by  Popes  Gelasius  I  and  Leo  the 
Great.  Gratiani  Decretum  de  Consecr.,  D.  3.  C.  IS. 

APPENDIX  XLIX 

Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV.  22,  5;  V.  16,  7;  V.  28,  12;  VI.  43,  5.  Hermas,  "  Past.  Mand.," 
xi.  Tertullian,  "  De  Bapt.,"  7 ;  Episcopatus  cemulatio  schismatum  mater  ett. 
Cyprian,  Epist.  59.  Opatatus,  "Adv.  Farm.,"  iv.  Epiphanius,  'fHaer.,"  xlii.  1,  etc. 


APPENDIX  L 

The  eulogy  which  Ignatius  bestows  upon  the  bishop,  and  the  part  allotted  to  him, 
appear  to  be  far  more  appreciative  than  those  to  whom  Tertullian  and  Irenaeus 
awarded  it  a  little  later.  They  have  been  held  to  be  hyperbolic.  They  are  simply 
mystic  and  may  be  perfectly  understood  from  the  point  of  view  just  brought  for- 
ward. This  appears  with  evidence  from  the  following  passages,  "  Ad.  Magn.,"  iii. 
1,  vii :  "Qairtp  ofiv  6  xvpiot  Avev  rov  irarp&t  otiStv  ttrovfifftv  ....  Svrus  nqdt  fyiets  Avev  rov 
iiriffubirov  Kal  rGtv  wpffffivrtpuv  fjirjiiv  irpdfforere.  "  Ad.  Trail.,"  ii.  2:'A.vayKaiovoSv  tyrlv  .  . 
Avev  TOV  iiriffKbirov  fjuidivirpdffffetv  fyi&j,  &\\'inroTdfffftff0ai  Kal  T$  irpeffftvTijptif  ws  rots  dwoffr6\oa 
'Iifffov  XpwroO.  Ibid.,  iii.  1:  rbv  firlffKoirov6vra  rtirovrov  irarpbt,  TOI>S  5£  Trptyfivripovs  wtffvv- 
tSpiov  6eou  KO.I  ffMeo-pov  diroffTbXwv.  "Ad.  Philad.,"  iv.,  vii.,  and  viii.;  "Ad.  Smyrn.," 
viii.,  etc.)  Thence  the  idea  that  the  bishop  takes  the  place  of  God  or  of  Christ,  and 
that  the  presbyterate  is  like  God's  Sanhedrin,  or  the  college  of  apostles.  Thence 
also  the  notion  that  the  true  Eucharist  is  that  of  the  bishop,  that  where  the  bishop 
is  the  Christian  people  ought  to  be,  for  the  true  church  is  where  Jesus  Christ  is. 
All  this  forms  an  original  and  very  intelligible  system,  very  different  from  the  one 
which  will  appear  later.  The  theory  of  the  apostolic  succession  of  the  bishops  has 
no  part  here,  and  is  positively  absent  from  it. 

APPENDIX  LI 

Tertullian,  "Ad  Martyras,"  i;  "De  Pudic.,"  22.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V.,  1,  4,  and 
20;  v.  2.  Cyprian,  Epist.  xiv.  4;  xix.  2;  xxxiv.  4;  xxi.  3;  xxxvii.  4;  Ixxvi.  7.  Origen, 


APPENDIX  399 

"  Horn,  in  Fum.,"  xxiv.  1 ;  "  De  Exhort,  ad  Martyr.,"  30  and  50.  The  martyrs  were 
looked  upon  as  exceptional  Christians  or  saints,  in  whom  the  expiatory  sufferings  of 
Christ  still  went  on.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V.  i.  23,  says  of  a  martyr:  tv  v  irdffxwv  Xp«rr6r. 
Whence  their  privilege  and  power  to  remit  the  sins  of  those  who  visited  them  in 
prison  to  ask  for  a  note  of  absolution,  literce  pads. 


APPENDIX  LIT 

GENERAL  LITERATURE.  Besides  the  documents  cited  or  discussed  in  the  course  of 
the  chapter,  the  Synodal  Decision  contained  in  the  great  collections  of  Acts  of  the 
Councils,  the  most  complete  of  which  is  that  of  Mansi,  Concil.  Coll.  Nova  et  Amplis- 
fiima,  31  vol.  in  folio,  1759.  Routh,  "  Reliquiae  Sacrae,"  iii.  and  iv.  De  Lagarde, 
"Reliquiae  Juris  Ecclesiast.  Antiquis.,"  1856.  Pitra,  "Juris  Ecclesiast.  Monum.," 
1864. 

Apostolicas  Constitutiones,  Cotelier  edition,  and  the  entire  history  of  their  pro- 
gressive formation.  R.  Rothe,  "  Die  Anfaenge  der  christ.  Kirche."  Beyschlag 
"  Die  Kirch.  Verfassung  im  Zeitalter  d.  n.  T."  Weizsaecker,  "  Das  apost.  Zeit- 
alter."  F.  C.  Baur,  "  Der  Ursprung  d.  Episcopate."  A.  Ritschl,  "  Die  Entstehung 
d.  alt.  kathol.  Kirche."  A.  Harnack,  O.  Gebhardt,  T.  Zahn,  "  Patrum  apostol.  Opera," 
with  texts,  criticisms,  and  commentaries,  from  1876.  Hatch,  "The  Organization  of 
the  Early  Christian  Churches."  E.  Renan,  "  Hist.  d.  orig.  du  Christian.,"  especially 
the  volumes  on  the  Gospels,  and  on  Marcus  Aurelius.  J.  Reville,  "  Les  origines  de 
1'Episcopat,"  i. 

APPENDIX  LIII 


Ignatius  ad  Rom.  iii.  1  ;  AXXout  iSiSd^are.  An  interesting  story  related  by  Eusebius 
vi.  2,  13,  about  a  lady  of  Alexandria  who  gave  impartial  hospitality  to  Origen  and  a 
noted  heretic,  and  invited  them  both  to  give  addresses,  serves  to  show  the  difference 
that  existed  between  the  doctrinal  tolerance  that  prevailed  in  Egypt,  and  Roman 
practice.  The  catalogue  of  the  New  Testament  books  in  the  Muratorian  Fragment, 
which  may  date  back  to  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  is  of  Roman  origin.  The  lists 
of  the  episcopal  succession  in  Rome  are  of  the  time  of  Eleutherus  or  of  Victor 
(180-195).  Finally,  the  oldest  apostolic  constitutions  bear  the  names  of  Clement 
and  Hippolytus,  who  are  Romans. 


APPENDIX  LIV 

Vide  in  Eusebius  v.  24,  2,  the  letter  of  Polycrates,  "  It  is  we  who  are  faithful  to 
tradition.  ...  In  Asia  repose  the  bodies  of  those  great  men;  Philip,  John,  Poly- 
carp,  Sagaris,  Papirius,  Meliton,  who  will  rise  again  at  the  last  day,"  "  All  of  them 
celebrated  Easter  the  fourteenth  day  according  to  the  Gospel.  ...  I,  therefore, 
my  brethren,  who  have  lived  sixty-five  years  in  the  Lord,  who  have  conversed  with 


400  APPENDIX 

brethren  throughout  the  whole  world,  who  have  read  the  Holy  Scriptures  from  end 
to  end,  I  shall  not  lose  my  self-possession  whatever  may  be  done  to  frighten  me. 
Greater  than  I  have  said:  'We  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  man.'  ...  I 
could  cite  bishops  here  present  who  have  come  to  see  me,  poor,  forlorn  me,  and  have 
given  their  adhesion  to  my  letter,  knowing  well  that  I  do  not  wear  white  hair  for 
nothing;  and  who  are  assured  that  all  that  I  do,  I  do  in  the  Lord  Jesus."  To  this 
noble  and  touching  letter  Victor  replied  by  his  decree  of  excommunication,  which 
evoked  protests  from  almost  all  the  other  bishops. 


APPENDIX  LV 

Letter  from  Irenaeus  to  Victor  in  Eusebius  v.  24,  14  and  15:  "Yes,  the  presby- 
teri  who  before  Soter  directed  the  church  which  thou  now  guidest,  Anicetus,  Pius, 
Hyginus,  Telesphorus,  Xyste,  did  not  observe  the  Jewish  Passover  .  .  .;  but,  while 
they  observed  it  not,  none  the  less  did  they  keep  the  peace  with  the  churches  that 
observed  it  ...  Never  was  anyone  repelled  for  this  reason.  On  the  contrary,  the 
elders  that  preceded  thee,  and  who  did  not  themselves  observe  it,  used  to  send  the 
Eucharist  to  those  who  observed."  He  goes  on  to  cite  the  example  of  reciprocal 
concord  and  respect  set  by  Anicetus  and  Polycarp.  The  resistance  of  the  bishops 
of  Asia,  supported  on  all  sides,  was  not  overcome.  The  question  was  not  definitively 
settled  until  the  Council  of  Nicaea. 


APPENDIX  LVI 


Irenaeus  lii.  8.  3:  Qf/j.t\ui>cravTis  otv  Kal  olKoSon^ffairrn  ol  paxdpioi  dr&rroXoi  rty 

vif  rty  rrjt  ivtffKorris  \eirovpytav  ivexe^Plffav- 
To  the  same  effect  Eusebius  says,  H.  E.  III.  2:  rijt  8t  'PufMluv  tKK\7)fftat  /wrA  rty 
IlatfXov  KttZ  Htrpov  iMprvpiav  irpwros  K\t]povra.i  -rty  ivurKowijv  AtVoj.  So  also  speak  the 
Apostolic  Constitutions,  Rufinus,  etc.  To  anyone  even  a  little  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  the  early  times  the  idea  of  an  apostle-bishop  is  a  moral  impossibility, 
because  the  two  terms  are  mutally  exclusive. 


APPENDIX  LVII 

Cyprian  is  the  first  writer  who  designates  the  Roman  See  as  locum  Petri  (Ep. 
52)  and  cathedram  Petri  (Ep.  55).  But  in  his  view  the  entire  Episcopate  is  the 
successor  of  Peter,  and  the  Bishop  of  Rome  has  no  power  over  his  colleagues  (Ep. 
33,  1).  We  must  be  on  our  guard  in  the  "  De  Unitate,"  4  and  5,  against  certain 
Roman  interpolations  concerning  the  primacy  of  Peter,  which  are  wanting  in  the 
most  ancient  MSS.  and  in  the  first  printed  editions.  Cyprian's  true  thought  is  found 
in  Ep.  71,  3.  And  still  more  clearly  in  his  adress  before  the  Synod  of  Carthage  in 
the  year  256:  Neque  enim  quisquam  nostrum  epitcopum  »e  este  episcoporum  constituit, 


APPENDIX  401 

out  tyrannico  terrore  ad  obsequendi  necetsitatem  collegas  suos  adigit,  quando  habeat 
omnig  epitcopus  pro  licentia  libertatis  et  potestatis  suoe  arbitrium  proprium,  tanquam 
judicari  ab  alio  non  passit,  quum  nee  ipse  possit  alterum  judicare. 


APPENDIX  LVIII 

Acts  xv.;  Gal.  ii.;  Horn.  Clement.,  "  Ep.  Petri  ad  Jacob."  The  Roman  exegesis 
of  Matt.  xvi.  18,  was  a  long  time  in  winning  its  way,  and  its  success  was  a  more 
difficult  feat  than  is  generally  believed.  Most  of  the  Fathers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  still  stood  for  the  spiritualistic  or  symbolic  interpretation.  The  word  irtrpa 
is  generally  understood  of  Peter's  confession  (Hilary,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Ambrose, 
Chrysostom)  or  else  of  the  person  of  Christ  (Jerome,  Augustine),  more  rarely  of 
the  person  of  Peter.  Jerome  wavers  (Ep.  15  al.  57  "Ad  Damasum").  Even  in  the 
latter  case,  Peter  is  considered  as  merely  the  representative,  the  epitome,  the  symbol 
of  the  entire  episcopate.  Primatum  confession!*,  non  honoris,  primatum  fidei,  non 
ordinis,  says  Ambrose,  "  De  Incarnat  Domini,"  c.  4.  Optatus  Milev,  "  De  Sohismate 
Donatistarum  libri  vii.";  Augustine,  "  De  Diversis,"  serm.  108,  and  in  Evang.  Johannis 
tractatus,  124,  5,  etc.  Vide  Casaubon,  "  Exercit.  ad  Baronium,"  xv.  n.  13ff.  and,  to  sum 
up,  Gieseler,  "  Kirchengesch.,"  vol.  i.  part  2,  p.  10.  An  interesting  story  might  be 
told  of  the  exegesis  of  the  text  of  Matthew.  It  would  be  seen  that  exegesis  did  not 
always  determine  the  evolution  of  the  hierarchy,  but  rather  the  hierarchy  that  of 
exegesis. 

APPENDIX  LIX 

Innocent  I,  Epist.  25,  "Ad  Docentium."  Cone,  of  Sardis,  Epist.  "Ad  Julium 
episc.  Rom."  (in  Mansi,  iii.  40.  Vide  Can.  3  in  Mansi,  iii.  23).  Yet  from  the  narra- 
tive of  Hilary  of  Aries,  the  canons  of  the  Council  of  Carthage  (398),  and  the  letter 
of  the  Council  of  Africa  to  Celestin  I,  the  resistance  encountered  by  this  new  juris- 
diction of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  becomes  evident. 

APPENDIX  LX 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  in  the  West,  even  under  Leo  I,  the  bishops  of  Rome 
had  no  exclusive  name  or  title.  The  names  Papa  Apostolicus,  Vicariits  Chritti, 
Summus  Pontifex,  Sedes  apostolica,  were  used  of  other  bishops  and  their  sees.  In 
the  East  Dioscurus  caused  himself  to  be  called  olicov/j.eviKt>t  dpxitirlffKovot  as  Patri- 
arch of  Alexandria.  The  statement  of  the  Roman  Catechism  (Pars  ii.  c.  7,  quaest. 
24)  is  a  fable;  according  to  it,  Cyril  at  the  Council  of  Ephesus  called  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  Archiepiscopum  totius  orbis  terrarum  Patrem  et  Patriarcham.  Clovis  still 
gives  the  name  of  "popes"  to  all  bishops  (Mansi,  viii.  346).  In  the  Greek  Church 
it  continues  to  be  the  name  of  all  clerics.  Indefinite  and  general  until  the  seventh 
century,  the  usage  which  reserved  it  as  the  unique  title  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  alone 


402  APPENDIX 

was  not  fixed  until  the  celebrated  Dictation  of  Gregory  VII:  Quod  hoc  unicum  e»t 
nomen  in  mundo.  Vide  Thomassin,  "  Vetus  et  Nova  Eccl.  Disciplina,"  Pars  i.  lib. 
i.  4,  Gieseler,  K.  G.  i.  p.  228.  S.  Berger,  Encyl.  des  sciences  relig.,  art.  "  Pape,"  etc. 

APPENDIX  LXI 

Leo,  Epist.  10.  al.  89,  "Ad  Episc.  Provinciae  Viennensis":  Bed  huju»  muneris 
tacramentum  ita  Dominus  ad  omnium  apottolorum  offirium  pertinere  voluit,  ut  in 
beatissimo  Petro,  apottolorum  omnium  tummo,  principaliter  collocaret,  et  ab  ipto, 
quasi  quodam  capite,  (this  is  new  indeed)  dona  sua  velit  in  corpus  omne  manure, 
ut  exsortem  se  mysterii  intelligent  esse  divini,  qui  ausus  fuisset  a  Petri  soliditate 
recedere.  And  elsewhere,  "  Ep.  ad  Anastasium,  episc.  Thessalonic."  12  (al  14),  c. 
11:  Magna  ordinatione  provisum  est  ne  omnes  (episcopi)  tibi  omnia  vindicarent, 
sed  essent  in  singulis  provincii*  singuli,  quorum  inter  fratrei  haberetur  prima  ten- 
tentia,  et  rursus  quidam,  in  majoribus  urbibut  conttituti,  sollicitudinem  susciperent 
ampliorem,  per  quot  ad  unam  Petri  sedem  universalis  eccletice  cura  conftueret  et  nihil 

utquam  a  tuo  capite  dissideret  (See  again  Leo,  serra.  82). 

ii 

APPENDIX  LXII 

See  how  Justinian,  with  reference  to  church  matters,  addresses  himself  to  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  as  well  as  to  others  (Cod.  Justin,  nov.  123,  c.  3.)  KiKeuoiuvrolwv,  K.T.\. 
See  also  the  curious  way  in  which  Gregory  the  Great  humbly  obeys,  though  with 
protest,  a  law  of  the  Emperor  Maurice  (Greg.  M.  lib.  iii.  ep.  63,  "Ad  Mauricium 
Aug.").  Utrobique  ergo  qua;  debvi  exsolvi,  qui  et  imperatori  obedientiam  prcebui  et 
pro  Deo  quod  sensi  minime  tacui.  He  recognises  and  proclaims  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  emperor,  to  whom  God  has  said  Sacerdotes  meos  [including  the  Pope]  tua 
manui  commisL  It  is  by  noting  these  attitudes  that  we  measure  the  distance  over- 
passed by  the  papacy. 

APPENDIX  LXIII 

These  "  False  Decretals "  of  the  Pseudo-Isidore  became  the  basis  of  the  new 
canon  law  which  took  the  place  of  the  old.  Without  this  document  the  development 
of  the  papal  system  to  the  universal  theocracy  of  Gregory  VII  and  Innocent  III 
would  be  unintelligible.  Vide  David  Blondel,  "  Pseudo-Isodorus  et  Turrianus 
vapulantes,"  1628.  Gieseler,  K.  G.  ii.  1st  Part,  p.  173  and  £F.  Cunitz,  Encyl.  des 
sc.  relig.,  art.  "Decretals." 

APPENDIX  LXIV 

The  life  and  letters  of  Hildebrand  prove  that  though  he  was  animated  by  an 
absolutely  sincere  conviction,  faith  did  not  in  his  case  exclude  the  dexterity  at  once 


APPENDIX  403 

versatile  and  tenacious  of  the  man  of  policy.    To  him,  above  all  others,  the  Church 
owes  it  that  she  was  constituted  an  essentially  political  society. 


APPENDIX  LXV 

An  ancient  tradition  preserved  by  the  "Liber  Pontiflcalis"  relates  that  Everest, 
who  comes  fourth  on  the  list  of  the  early  Roman  bishops,  "ordained  seven  deacons 
with  the  mission  of  watching  over  the  preaching  of  the  bishop,  lest  he  swerve  from 
the  type  of  the  truth"  ("Lib.  Pont,"  6).  Evidently  Everest  held  neither  himself 
nor  his  successors  to  be  infallible.  This  citation  has  another  importance;  it  gives  a 
glimpse  of  how  and  under  what  conditions  the  Episcopate  was  established  in  Rome. 
This  church  for  a  long  time  was  content  to  be  presbyterial.  When  it  acquired  a 
bishop,  precisely  about  the  epoch  of  Everest,  under  Trajan,  the  bishop  must  have 
had  around  him  a  supervising  council.  This  is  perhaps  the  historic  meaning  of  this 
curious  tradition,  which  must  be  very  ancient,  since  after  the  third  century  it  could 
not  have  been  invented. 

APPENDIX  LXVI 

Athanasius,  "Historia  Arian.  ad  Monachos,"  41.  Jerome,  "Chronicle,"  edition 
Schoene,  p.  194.  "  Catal.  de  Viris  111.,"  c.  97.  Vide  Hefele,  "  Conciliengesch.,"  i. 
Gieseler,  K.  G.  i.,  2d  Part,  p.  60.  S.  Berger,  Encyl.  des  sc.  relig.,  art.  "  Liberius." 


APPENDIX  LXVII 

Vigelius  wrote  to  the  Monophysite  bishops  Theodosius,  Anthimus,  and  Severus, 
a  letter  in  which  he  declared  himself  gained  to  their  doctrine,  begging  them  to  say 
nothing  on  the  subject,  for  fear  of  injuring  his  candidacy  for  the  See  of  Rome, 
which  he  succeeded  in  gaining.  The  letter  is  preserved  by  the  Chronicler  Victor  of 
Tunnum  and  by  Liberatus,  Breviarium,  c.  22.  The  essential  passage  is  as  follows, 
according  to  Gieseler,  i.  2,  p.  367:  Me  earn  ftdem  quam  tenetis,  Deo  adjuvante,  et 
tenuitse  et  tenere  tignifico.  Oportet  ergo  ut  hccc  quce  vobif  tcribo  nulhis  agnoscat 
ted  mayis  tanquam  suspectum  me  sapientia  vestra  ante  alias  existimet  habere,  ut 
facilius  possim  hoec  quce  caepi  operari  et  perficere.  See  also  in  Gieseler,  76.,  p.  370, 
his  subservience  to  the  orders  of  the  Emperor  Justinian,  who  caused  him  to  write  a 
declaration,  which,  however,  he  afterward  withdrew.  In  a  letter  to  Boniface  IV, 
St.  Colombanus,  recalling  the  errors  of  Vigelius  and  playing  upon  his  name,  said: 
"Watch,  I  beseech  thee,  O  Pope,  watch!  and  again  I  say,  watch!  for  that  Vigelius 
was  not  vigilant  whom  men  here  show  forth  as  the  head  of  scandal,  and  throw  him 
at  our  heads  as  a  reproach.  Well  may  we  weep  when  the  Catholic  faith  is  not  main- 
tained upon  the  seat  of  the  apostles."  Colombanus  was  evidently  ignorant  of  the 
dogma  of  papal  infallibility  (Gullandi,  Biblioth.  Patrum,  xii.) 


404  APPENDIX 

APPENDIX  LXVIII 

The  heresy  of  Honorius  is  important  only  from  the  Catholic  point  of  view.  If 
a  single  Pope  has  been  in  error  none  of  them  can  be  infallible.  Hence  the  incredible 
passion  with  which  the  case  of  Honorius  was  discussed  at  the  time  of  the  Vatican 
Council  (vide  the  four  letters  of  Father  Gratry,  1870).  Nevertheless  the  case  is 
extremely  simple.  The  letter  of  Honorius,  in  which  the  Pope  shares  the  heresy  of 
those  who  admitted  only  a  single  will  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  found  in  a  Greek  transla- 
tion in  Mansi,  xi.  p.  538ff.  The  really  grave  feature  of  the  case  is  the  anathemas 
pronounced  upon  Honorius.  The  Sixth  Ecumenical  Council  (Actio  xiii  in  Mansi, 
xi.  p.  556)  after  having  condemned  the  Eastern  bishops,  Sergius,  Cyrus,  Pyrrhus, 
Petrus,  and  Paulus,  adds:  "We  also  exclude  from  the  Church  and  declare  to  be 
anathema  Honorius,  ical  'Ovd>pu>v  ri>v  ycv6pevov  vdirav  rijt  irpefffivrtpai  'P<fytT;j.  This 
anathema  was  repeated  (Actio  xvi.  and  xviii.).  In  his  letter  to  the  Emperor  at  Con- 
stantinople, Pope  Leo  II,  one  of  the  successors  of  Honorius,  confirms  and  repeats 
the  anathema  (Vide  Mansi,  xi.  col.  731;  et  ejusdem  epist.  ad  Episcop.  Hispaniae,  col. 
1052flF).  Finally,  in  the  profession  of  faith  made  by  the  later  Popes  on  taking  their 
seat  (Liber  diurnus,  84,  ed.  Sickel,  p.  100),  a  perpetual  anathema  is  pronounced  upon 
the  authors  of  any  new  and  heretical  dogma:  Sergium  .  .  .  itna  cum  Honorio 
qui  pravis  eorum  assertionibus  foment  urn  impendit.  If  such  a  condemnation  for 
heresy  does  not  command  belief,  what  one  will?  The  defenders  of  Honorius  have 
insisted  that  the  acts  of  the  Council  and  the  letter  of  Honorins  were  falsified.  Why 
should  they  have  been,  at  the  very  time  when  everybody  was  conspiring  to  exalt  the 
papacy?  There  were  falsifications  at  a  later  day,  but  they  were  of  the  opposite  sort, 
not  to  create  scandal,  but  to  do  away  with  it.  Vide  Richer,  "  Hist,  gener.  concil.," 
i.  p.  296.  Du  Pin,  "  De  Antiqua  Eccl.  Discipl.,"  p.  349.  Bossuet,  "  Defensio  Declar. 
Cleri  Gallic.,"  ii.  128.  Cf.  that  edition  of  Hefele's  "  History  of  the  Councils  "  which 
preceded  the  Vatican  Council  with  the  one  which  followed  it. 


APPENDIX   LXIX 

Gregor.,  Dictat.  22.  The  infallibility  of  the  Pope  himself  is  not  here  affirmed, 
but  it  is  clearly  understood  that  he  is  the  mouth  as  well  as  the  head  of  the  infallible 
Roman  Church,  and  therefore  he  represents  its  infallibility.  Nevertheless,  the  dis- 
tinction is  always  made  between  the  organ  of  the  Roman  Church  and  the  person 
of  the  Pope  himself,  and  the  possibility  is  clearly  admitted  that  the  Pope  may  err 
in  matters  of  faith.  Thus  in  a  decretal  of  the  monk  Gratian  (eleventh  century)  we 
read:  Papa  cunctos  ipse  judicature  a  nemine  eft  judicandus  nisi  deprehenditur 
a  fide  deviut  (Gratianus,  Diet.  xl.  c.  6  ex  dictu  Bonifacii  martyris).  The  same 
thought  is  expressed  by  Innocent  III  himself  ("De  Consecratione  Pontiff'  serm.  3). 


APPENDIX  405 

APPENDIX  T.-KX 

Innocent  III  declares  that  he  is  not  the  voice  of  a  man,  that  is,  of  Peter,  but  of 
God  himself  (Lib.  I.  epist.  326,  335),  that  he  holds  a  power  not  human,  but  divine, 
whence  the  glosses  of  the  canonists:  dicitur  habere  cosleste  arbitrium. — In  hit  quce 
cult,  est  pro  ratlone  voluntas. — Nee  est  qui  ei  dicat:  cur  ita  fads? — Ipse  enim  potest 
tupra  jus  dispensare. — De  injustitia  potest  facere  justitiam  corrigenda  jura  et 
mutando.  In  fact,  there  have  been  canonists  to  say  that  simony  was  not  a  sin  in 
Rome,  because,  though  the  Pope  condemned  it  in  others,  he  had  the  right  to  tolerate 
it  in  himself  (vide  Gieseler,  K.  G.  II.  Part  2,  4th  edition,  p.  224ff. 

Hence  the  quasi-divine  honours  rendered  to  the  Pope:  All  Kings  should  kiss  his 
feet  (Gregor,  Dictat.  10).  It  is  the  Emperor's  duty  to  hold  his  stirrup  (o/ficium 
ttrepog).  These  are  Oriental  habits  and  forms  of  honour  and  respect  which,  at  this 
period,  passed  from  Constantinople  to  Rome. 


APPENDIX    LXXI 

Gregor.,  Dictat.  7:  Quod  UK  soli  Papce  licet  pro  temporis  necessitate  novas  leges 
condere.  Sexti,  Lib.  Decretal.,  I.  tit.  2:  Romanus  Pontifex  jura  omnia  in  tcrinio 
pectoris  sui  censetur  habere,  a  formula  which  became  axiomatic  in  the  Roman 
speech.  There  was,  however,  one  eighteenth-century  Pope,  the  learned  and  enlightened 
Benedict  XIV,  who  doubted  and  made  light  of  it.  "  If  it  is  true,"  said  he,  "that  in 
the  treasure-house  of  my  breast  are  hidden  all  law  and  all  truth,  I  confess  that  I  have 
never  been  able  to  find  the  key."  Hase,  "  Hanb.  der.  prot.  Polemik,"  5th  edition, 
p.  207. 

APPENDIX    LXXn 

The  simple  and  since  then  oft-repeated  argument  from  Scripture  in  Cuke  xxii.  32, 
"  I  have  prayed  for  thee  that  thy  faith  fail  not."  The  reasoning  ran  and  still  runs 
thus:  Every  prayer  of  Christ  was  answered.  This  one  must  also  have  been.  Unfor- 
tunately we  find  Peter  denying  his  Master  only  a  few  hours  after,  and  again,  at 
Antioch  (Gal.  ii.),  meriting  the  severe  reprimand  of  Paul  for  weakness  which  went 
as  far  as  hypocrisy.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  peculiarity  of  Peter  to  be  overtaken 
by  temptation,  to  fail,  and  afterward  to  atone  for  his  failures  by  repentance.  This 
example  shows  how  far  our  exegesis  is  from  that  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


APPENDIX    LXXIII 

Thomas  Aquinas  develops  the  papal  attributes:  Summits  Pontifex,  caput  ecclesioe, 
cura  ecclesioe  universalis,  plenitudo  potestatis,  potestas  determinandi  novum  sym- 
bolum.  He  deduces  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  from  that  of  the  Church.  It  matters 
little  what  the  Pope  is  morally.  Thomas  cites  the  example  of  Caiaphas  who,  though 


406  APPENDIX 

wicked,  yet,  because  he  was  the  pontiff,  unconsciously  spoke  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Until  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  papal  system  continued  to  be 
developed  in  a  literature  which  was  juridical  to  its  remotest  consequences.  The  two 
most  extraordinary  works  are  those  of  the  Augustinian  monk  Triumphus,  who  died 
in  1328  ("  Summa  de  Potestate  Ecclesiastica  ad  Joh.  Papam  XXII"),  and  of  the 
Franciscan  monk  Alvarus  Pelagius,  who  died  about  1340  ("De  Planeta  Ecclesiae"). 
According  to  Harnack  ("  Dogm.  Gesch.,"  III.  p.  399),  these  two  canonists  actually 
distinguish  between  the  Pope  and  God  only  by  saying  that  the  Pope  should  be 
adored  only  "  ministerialiter."  Elsewhere  they  call  him  "  Domimu  deus  noster  papa." 
Gieseler,  K.  G.  II.  3d  Part,  4th  edition,  p.  42ff. 


APPENDIX    LXXIV 

In  the  rich  literature  called  forth  by  the  Vatican  Council  only  a  few  names  of  the 
opposing  party  can  be  cited:  Mark,  "Du  concile  ge'ne'ral  et  de  la  paix  religieuse," 
2  vols.,  1869.  F.  Gratry,  four  letters,  1869.  De  Pressense,  "  Le  Concile  du  Vatican," 
1870.  Janus,  "  Der  Pabst  u.  das  Concil,"  1869.  Friedrich,  "peschichte  des  Vatic. 
Concils,"  1872.  Dupanloup,  "  Lettre  sur  le  future  Concile,"  1869 ;  "  Reponse  de  Mgr. 
Dupanloup  &  Mgr.  Dechamps,"  1870  (Naples);  among  the  lawyers:  Mgr.  Dechamps, 
"  L'infaillibilite  et  le  Concile,"  1869.  Manning,  "Tradizione  della  Chiesa  intorno 
all'  infallibilita,"  1169. 


APPENDIX   LXXV 

Spinoza,  "Tract,  theol.  polit.":  Non  satis  mirari  possum  cur  inter  sacros  libros 
recepti  fuerunt  (libri  Paralipom.)  06  ii»  qui  libros  Sapientice,  Tobice  et  reliquos  ex 
canone  sacrorwm  deleverunt.  Upon  the  question  of  Old  Testament  Apocrypha,  the 
object  of  such  long  and  sterile  quarrels  between  Protestants  and  Catholics,  vide  E. 
Reuss,  "  Hist,  du  Canon  des  S.  Ecrit."  Evidently  the  Protestants  had  the  worst  of 
the  argument,  since  they  could  defend  their  thesis  only  by  attributing  divine 
authority  to  acts  of  the  synagogue  and  of  Pharisaic  Rabbinism,  as  they  could  defend 
the  divine  character  of  the  New  Testament  only  by  admitting  the  divine  character 
of  the  acts  of  the  Church  Fathers,  of  the  Councils,  and  of  a  tradition  which  in  all 
other  respects  they  declare  fallible  and  tainted  with  error. 


APPENDIX  LXXVI 

Dailld,  "Trait^  de  1'emploi  des  Saints  Peres,"  etc.,  1632-66;  "  De  Pseudepigraphis 
Apostolicis,"  1655;  "  De  scriptis  quae  sub  Dionysii  Arop,  et  Sancti  Ignatii  Nomi- 
nibus  Circumferuntur,"  1666.  D.  Blondel,  "  Pseudo-Isidorus  et  Turrianus  vapu- 
lantes,"  1628,  and  other  works,  1641-49.  This  was  the  beginning  of  historic  criticism 
and  exegesis  among  Protestant  pastors. 


APPENDIX  407 

APPENDIX    LXXVI1 

Alph.  Turrctin  and  J.  F.  Osterwald  are  witnesses  to  the  weakening  of  the  doctrine 
of  inspiration.  Both  of  them  passed  over  to  Arminianism.  The  former  calls  the 
Bible  "  a  divine  book  "  because  of  the  excellence  and  the  moral  and  religious  superi- 
ority of  its  teachings.  The  latter  distinguishes  in  the  Bible  between  the  express 
revelations  of  God  and  the  things  which  the  writers  may  have  seen,  heard,  or  known 
by  themselves,  and  afterward  related  according  to  their  own  ability,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  general  divinity  of  the  Bible  is  proved  by  the  truth  of 
its  doctrines;  by  its  moral  effects,  and  by  its  miracles  and  prophecies.  "Certain 
theologians,"  says  Osterwald  again,  "  have  added  to  these  prdofs  the  witness  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  which,  however,  some  esteem  of  little  probative  value  and  superfluous." 
Nothing  is  more  significantly  characteristic  of  the  orthodoxy  of  this  period.  A. 
Turretin,  "  Cognitationes  et  Dissert  Theolog.,"  1737.  J.  F.  Osterwald,  "  Compendium 
Theologiae  Christ.,"  1739. 

APPENDIX    LXXVIII 

Michaelis,  "  Dogm.,"  p.  92:  Ich  mutt  aufrichtig  gestehen,  datt  to  fett  ich  von  der 
Wahrheit  der  Offenbarung  iiberzeugt  bin,  ich  in  meinem  Leben  niemals  ein  tolchei 
Zeugnist  det  Heil.  Qeistes  vernommen  habe,  auch  in  der  Bibel  kein  Wort  davon  ftnde. 
Rcinhard,  "Dogm."  p.  69. 

APPENDIX    LXXIX 

In  a  history  of  the  precursors  of  the  religious  and  literary  renascence  of  the 
nineteenth  century  there  would  be  many  other  names  to  cite,  especially  of  poets: 
Klopstock  (1724-1803),  Hamann  (1730-88),  Lavater  (1741-1801),  Claudius  (1740- 
1815);  especially  Herder,  with  his  thoroughly  religious  philosophy  of  history  (1744- 
1803).  Poetry,  like  flowers,  is  always  the  forerunner  of  spring. 


APPENDIX  LXXX 

Chateaubriand,  "Le  Genie  du  Christianisme,"  1802;  "Les  Martyrs,"  1809;  "Pltine- 
raire,"  1811.  Mme.  de  Stael,  "  1'Allemagne,"  1810.  Fontanes,  "le  Jour  des  Morts," 
1796.  Early  works  of  Lamartine,  Victor  Hugo,  De  Vigny.  Vide  Sainte-Beuve, 
"Chateaubriand  et  son  Groupe,"  2  vols.;  Vinet,  "Litterature  au  XlXme  Siecle," 
vol.  i. 

APPENDIX  LXXXI 

For  Puseylsm  vide  "Tracts  for  the  Times"  (1834-39).  J.  H.  Newman, 
"Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua."  C.  Schroll,  art.  "Traktarianismus,"  in  Herzog's  Real- 
Encyclop.,  2d  edition,  vol.  xv.  For  German  neo-Lutheranism,  vide  F.  Lichtenberger, 


408  APPENDIX 

"  Hist,  des  Idees  rel.  en  Allemagne,"  vol.  ii.    O.  Pfleiderer,  "  Entwickelung  d.  protest. 
Theoiogie  seit  Kant." 

APPENDIX  LXXXII 

Never  did  more  profound  piety  go  with  franker  criticism.  This  prayer  was  found 
among  his  notes:  "O  my  God,  give  it  to  me  to  be  true!  .  .  .  true  above  all  as  to 
thee,  as  to  thy  service.  .  .  .  Give  me  the  truth,  that  I  may  be  all  light.  Give  me 
sincerity  that  1  may  manifest  all  the  truth  I  know,  unveiled  and  without  reserve.  May 
my  heart  be  within  me  as  the  heart  of  the  weaned  child."  Gre'ard,  Ibid.,  p.  86. 
Scherer,  "La  critique  et  la  foi,"  1850. 


APPENDIX  LXXXIII 

It  would  be  difficult  and  useless  to  give  a  complete  bibliography  of  this  con- 
troversy. We  merely  remark  that  the  adversaries  of  the  new  theology  may  be  classed 
in  three  groups,  of  which  it  is  enough  to  name  the  principal  representatives. 

1.  The  thoroughgoing  Theopneustics :  Merle  d'Aubign£;  J.   H.  Darby;  De  Gas- 
parin;  C.  Malan. 

2.  Moderate  Theopneustics:     L.   Bonnet;  P.  Jalaguier.     Next  to  Jalaguier  and 
defending  the  dogma  in  the  same  essentially   rationalistic  way  are:     Cheneviere; 
Munier. 

3.  Finally,  the   third   party    (since   then   become   legion),   represented  by    Astie 
almost  alone:   Scherer  followed  this  controversy  closely  in  the  early  volumes  of  the 
Strasburg  review,  and  replied  to  one  and  all  with  caustic  precision. 


APPENDIX  LXXXIV 

Twesten,  "  Vorlesungen  tiber  die  Dogmatik  der  ev.-luth.  Kirche,"  4th  edition,  1838. 
K.  J.  Nitzsch,  "  System  der  christl.  Lehre,"  6th  edition,  1851.  J.  P.  Lange,  "  Christ- 
liche  Dogmatik,"  2d  edition,  1870.  D.  Schenkel,  "Die  christl.  Dogmatik,"  1858-59. 
A.  Dorner,  "  Entwickelungsgeschichte  d.  Lehre  von  d.  Person  Christi,"  1839  and  1856. 
"System  der  christl.  Glaubenslehre,"  2d  edition,  1886-88.  Naturally  the  dogma  of 
the  infallible  authority  of  the  letter  of  the  Bible  is  even  more  abandoned  by  the 
school  of  A.  Ritschl,  which  has  succeeded  that  of  the  "conciliation  theology"  (Ver- 
mittelungslheologie  ) . 

APPENDIX  LXXXV 

We  may  recall  the  words  of  Papias  (Eusebius  H.  E.  Hi.  89:  ot  y&p  r&  iK  T&V  /3i/3- 
\iuv  roffovrbv  jixe  &<pe\eiv  i>we\dfi.f3a.vov  SITOV  T&,  irapd.  fc6<rr;j  <f><avTJs  Kal  nevoforit.  And  further 
with  reference  to  the  logia  of  the  Lord  collected  by  Matthew:  ^p^vtvire  S'  otfrd  wi  $86- 


APPENDIX  409 

APPENDIX   LXXXVI 

Matt.  xx.  25-27;  xxiii.  8-12.  Cf.  I  Cor.  iii.  21-23.  It  is  evident  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  in  its  clerical  hierarchy,  its  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity, 
and  by  the  function  of  mediation  and  direction  attributed  to  its  priests,  violates 
both  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  these  words. 


APPENDIX   LXXXVII 

That  the  light  which  enlightens  the  Christian  and  gives  perfect  assurance  to  his 
faith  is  a  light  from  within  and  not  from  without,  nor  from  any  exterior  authority 
whatsoever,  is  proved  by  many  other  declarations  of  Jesus.  For  example,  he  had 
already  said,  "The  pure  in  heart  shall  see  God"  (Matt.  v.  8).  Later  he  added 
"  The  light  of  the  body  is  the  eye.  If  therefore  thine  eye  be  single  thy  whole  body 
shall  be  full  of  light,  but  if  thine  eye  be  evil  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  dark- 
ness. If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  the  darkness" 
(Matt.  vi.  22,  23).  From  this  we  may  understand  the  aim  and  end  of  all  Christ's 
teaching.  It  is  not  to  impose  upon  us  by  authority  any  belief  whatever,  but  to  en- 
lighten us  and  make  us  see.  His  disciples  are  those  to  whom  he  has  given  sight,  and 
who  thenceforth  may  walk  in  all  liberty  and  assurance  by  the  light  which  he  has  en- 
kindled within  them.  The  authority  of  his  person  is  therefore  never  distinct  from 
the  truth  of  his  utterances.  It  is  of  such  a  nature  that,  being  as  sovereign  and 
absolute  as  the  authority  of  truth  and  holiness,  it  not  only  accords  with  our  liberty, 
but  creates  it  and  makes  it  complete.  Christ  is  the  supreme  liberator:  by  freeing 
us  from  evil  he  frees  us  from  all  servitude,  and  establishes  us  in  royal  liberty.  His 
law  is  the  law  of  liberty.  (Jas.  i.  25.) 


APPENDIX   LXXXVIII 

2  Cor.  iii.  18:   nera.fjiop<t>ai'iif0a    .    .  .    dri  Kvpiov  irvetf/taroj.     2   Cor.   v.    17:   «f  ra  tf 

,  *caiv7j  KTfoif  rd  dpxcua  irapijWcv,  i5oi)  yeyovev  xau>d  rd  vdvra. 


APPENDIX   LXXXIX 


1  Cor  xiii.  9-12:  in  pjpnvt  ytv^Konev  ;  Phil.  iii.  15.  Study  especially  1  Cor.  vii.  40. 
Giving  his  opinion  without  insisting  upon  it  (^v  yvdpriv)  Paul  says:  "I  also  have 
the  Spirit  of  God,"  not  to  the  exclusion  of  the  community,  but  in  co-participation 
with  it.  The  Thessalonian  Christians  also  have  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  for  that 
reason  the  apostle  counsels  them  to  examine  all  things,  even  what  he  is  writing  to 
them,  end  to  hold  fast  that  which  is  good  (1  Thess.  v.  21). 


410  APPENDIX 

APPENDIX    XC 

Rom.  vii.  6:  woXatiTijrt  ypdfj/jurot —  KauirijTt  n-i/etf/xiTos.  2  Cor.  iii.  6-17:  diaKovia 
ypdnfMTos  —  SutKovla  irpetf/xaToj.  Rom.  viii.  13,  16.  Gal.  iv.  1-5. 

APPENDIX   XCI 

John  vi.  32-63,  the  entire  discourse  upon  the  bread  of  life:  xv.  1-7.  Observe 
in  both  Gospel  and  Epistle  the  frequent  use  of  the  verb  i*Avw,  abide.  John  v.  38, 
vi.  56,  xv.  9;  1  John  ii.  6,  10,  14,  24,  27,  28;  iv.  12,  13,  15,  etc. 

APPENDIX  XCII 

I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  here  a  noble  page  of  M.  M£n£goz:  "Ah,  how 
great  is  the  joy  of  him  who  has  reached  the  certainty  that  an  error  of  thought  cannot 
condemn  him,  and  that  God,  to  receive  him  to  mercy,  asks  only  one  thing:  his  heart. 
He  blesses  the  Lord  for  having  made  known  to  him  this  good  news,  and  freed  him 
from  doubt,  disquietude,  and  fear.  With  peace  of  soul  he  has  also  found  liberty  of 
mind.  He  is  delivered  from  the  yoke  of  legalism  and  orthodoxism.  He  enjoys  the 
precious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  And  now,  with  a  calm,  confident  mind, 
without  painful  apprehension,  and  without  endangering  his  inward  peace,  he  may  give 
himself  to  the  study  of  traditional  doctrine  and  of  those  numerous  critical  questions 
with  which  the  modern  world  is  preoccupied.  Whether  he  finds  or  fails  to  find  the 
truth,  the  salvation  of  his  soul  is  assured."  "  L'Evang.  du  Salut,"  in  "  Publications 
di verses  sur  le  fideisme,"  p.  39). 

APPENDIX  XCIII 

No  one  in  these  last  times  has  contributed  more  to  the  recognition  of  this  happy 
distinction  than  M.  Menegoz.  Vide  "  Publications  diverses  sur  le  fideisme,"  1900. 


APPENDIX  XCIV 

Cyprian,  "De  Unitate  Eccl.,"  6:     Habere  jam  non  poteit  Deum  patrem,  qui 
Ecdesiam  non  habet  matrem.    Calvin,  "  Inst,"  ch.  iv.  i,  1.    Of.  Gal.  iv.  26. 


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